


Brightest Nights or Darkest Days

by Kittenshift17



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Smut, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-06-27 14:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17
Summary: When a blizzard strikes, Katara is torn from Appa's back and separated from her friends. Attempting to find them, she stumbles across Zuko, similarly separated from Iroh and searching for his Uncle or the Avatar – whichever comes first. Pairing up looks like the only option, but what effect will such close contact between two enemies have in the long run?





	1. Chapter 1

She'd happened upon him by chance. A pure coincidence that had proved entirely too beneficial. Three weeks past, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe had been separated from her brother Sokka, her best friend Avatar Aang, as well as Appa and Momo during the terrible blizzard that had ripped across the four nations with all the wrath of avenging spirits brought to life and seeking vengeance.

Katara had been thoroughly lost in the wind and snow. Unfamiliar with the territory she roamed on foot, confusing landmarks she remembered from the South Pole with those of her current surroundings. She'd been forced to steal clothing and supplies along the way – having lost all but the clothes on her back when she'd been torn from Appa's back amid the blizzard and hurled away in the wild winds and teeming snow that had ravaged the land.

She knew there had been something otherworldly about the blizzard that had descended upon the land. The Earth Kingdom was not a place where such heavy snows and wild storms blew. She'd had to make do with what little she had – and she didn't have much of anything at all. She'd stolen a small rucksack from the first house she'd found, stealing clothing, food and supplies from there while the family slept.

She hadn't taken enough to leave them short, but she'd taken what she needed. Despite being lost and alone with no real means to contact Aang or Sokka, and no clue where to begin looking for them, Katara had resorted to disguising herself. And she still felt surprisingly upbeat. She was at home amid the snow and the ice – even if she did get a little turned around a few times. A water bender's favourite place to be was surrounded by water – no matter the form it took.

And having grown up in the South Pole, the driving cold and fluffy flurries of snow felt like a little slice of home. She'd taken to wandering the towns near where she had landed, searching for some sign or whisper about the Avatar being in the area. And it was through this practice that Katara had begun to learn many valuable things. The first and foremost being that in addition to Aang being wanted by the fire nation, she and Sokka were also listed as wanted fugitives. When she'd first spotted the poster she had been quick to change her clothes from the tell-tale Water-Tribe blue to a dull and boring brown set she'd pinched from an abandoned home.

She had also learned that the blizzard was unnerving everyone – yet some rejoiced for it had temporarily stilled the wheels of war. Katara knew this because last week she'd been involved in an uprising in a town many miles back where the local benders had risen up and overthrown the suddenly cold-weakened Fire Nation soldiers. It seemed that while the benders burned hot enough to tolerate the chill, prolonged exposure to the driving cold and inability to access the heat of the sun was weakening even them.

Katara believed it to be Karmic justice. The very world fighting back against the Fire Nation that had so ravaged and pillaged the land and its people.

She had come upon the least likely of people whilst searching for her friends. In addition to learning that she and Sokka were Fire Nation fugitives, she had learned that Prince Zuko and his Uncle Iroh, were also wanted renegades. She had spent many long minutes studying the other wanted posters when she'd discovered them, reading the crimes of all. She knew there was someone masquerading as the Blue Spirit who was wanted for a long list of crimes, including freeing and kidnapping the Avatar. Katara remembered that Aang had mentioned being saved by a silent man in a blue spirit mask.

She had stumbled upon him by accident three days ago as she'd been stealing food, fishing for information on her friends and removing every Fire Nation wanted poster featuring her and Sokka that she could find. There was little point removing those of Aang. They'd been up too long and everyone knew the Fire Nation wanted the Avatar.

She'd taken to following him.

Zuko.

Her first thought when she'd spotted him had been anger, followed quickly by confusion. Like her, he was masquerading as someone else. He'd stolen Earth Kingdom clothing, as she had, and had even adopted a new name. He was calling himself Lee. And he was travelling alone. Katara suspected that much like her, he had been separated from his Uncle in the blizzard. She knew they'd been on Aang's trail again. She also knew that if there was ever anyone who had the ability to track down Aang, it was Zuko. He'd chased them clear across the world and back again.

She didn't know how he did it, but somehow he always found them. And she was relying on that ability and his willingness to do it again as she tailed him. At first, it had been curiosity and concern, fear of what havoc he might be wreaking. Then it had been her plan to use him to lead her to Aang. However, as she'd followed him, she'd learned some things about Prince Zuko that she'd never thought she might discover.

The first and most important thing being that he was the Blue Spirit. She knew because she'd watched him don the disguise before liberating several Earth Benders from a detention camp across the city. He'd been utterly ruthless against his own nation's guards, slicing and hacking at them with deadly precision, ending lives wherever he went. He never used his bending – clearly not wanting to give himself away – but she'd learned that in addition to being a determined, dedicated and powerful bender, he was also a weapons master. He wielded blades with as much precision as he wielded fire.

She was following him now, having entered the same tea shop he'd gone to and ordered herself a cup of jasmine tea with some coins she'd stolen from Fire Nation soldiers. It seemed he either really liked tea shops - though he always made a face whenever he ordered a pot of tea for himself - or he was searching for his uncle in the tea shops. Katara supposed that made sense. Tea shops were places where gossip was bandied about rather freely, and what she recalled learning about Iroh was that he was very fond of tea.

She knew he'd noticed her a time or two in the days she'd been following him. She'd played it off as them simply being two travellers searching for lost friends who happened to be travelling the same direction. He'd been suspicious enough the previous day that he'd made to confront her and Katara had been forced to slip inside a tavern and play at being interested in a man she met there to avoid him.

Currently Zuko was sipping tea and glaring around the tea shop with distaste. It wasn't a particularly pleasant shop and when she tasted her own tea she made a face over the disappointing flavour. The leaves were clearly old and stale – and the water to brew them only just tepid. She'd been watching Zuko closely enough that she'd seen him react to the tea the same way she had, before he'd very subtly breathed heat into the cup until it had begun to steam pleasantly.

She eyed him carefully from the confines of the thick hood she wore to disguise the tribal colouring of her skin and to protect herself from being spotted and recognised. A thick scarf wrapped around her throat, concealing the water-tribe necklace she wore and her hood concealed her long dark hair. As she watched, the sound of raucous laughter drew her attention and Katara looked in the direction of the entrance to see some fire nation soldiers entering the tea shop. They were all fire bending openly to combat the cold of the snow outside.

When they began moving around the shop with a wanted poster, asking people if they'd seen the Blue Spirit, Katara saw the way Zuko shook his head, his identity also concealed by a thick hood that guarded against anyone spotting and recognising the scar across the left side of his face. The guards moved on from him quickly and Katara disagreed to having seen the Blue Spirit before abandoning her tea and leaving the shop – as Zuko had just done.

She followed him leisurely, wandering the market place. She'd learned the hard way that it was easier to tail someone by blending in and seeming like you were meant to be somewhere, rather than skulking about and acting suspicious. More than once in the last few days Zuko had looked right at her, a frown of confusion wrinkling his brow but Katara had been doing a good job of making it look like she was meant to be wherever she was. She roamed the market place, watching him subtly ask people if they'd seen or heard of anyone else lost in the blizzard who might be looking for someone named Lee.

She'd learned his uncle was going by Mushi instead of Iroh, but everywhere he asked, no one had heard of anyone matching Iroh's description. Katara looked up as a rare ray of sunshine beamed through the clouds overhead as she tailed Zuko toward the edge of town. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sunshine was the first she'd seen in three weeks.

She wasn't the only one effected by its warmth. Katara bit her lip when she noticed the way, up ahead, Zuko tipped his head back, his eyes closing and his hood falling back as he practically absorbed the sunshine. Literally. She could almost see him soaking it in like a dawn-blooming flower opening under its tender rays. She knew the feeling. The moon had a similar effect on her when it was full, making her feel alive and vibrant. When it rained she also enjoyed the feeling of soaking up her element.

What Zuko didn't see, however, was the group of Fire Nation soldiers at the other end of the street. They'd stopped to bask in the late afternoon sunshine and were looking around suspiciously, clearly thinking that if the sun had that effect on them, it would also have that effect on any other fire benders in hiding. Which was surprisingly smart for soldiers, given that it was working on Zuko.

They started towards him slyly, shoving each other a little and Katara panicked. He couldn't be captured. She didn't at all like or trust Zuko, but she didn't want to see him captured and hauled off to the Fire Nation. Not when his own father – the Fire Lord – had issued a decree that he was wanted, dead or alive. They would kill him for sure, or he would be forced to massacre them in the street – which she suspected would be the more likely of the two. And that would make it much harder for her to trail him when he finally began looking for Aang rather than his uncle again.

Breaking into a jog, Katara hurried towards him.

"Lee!" she called, affecting an excited tone of voice as though she had just spotted him and was thrilled to see him.

His eyes jumped to her as she came closer and she saw him tense, frowning in surprise. Katara ran a little faster, being sure to keep her hood up to hide her own identity before those soldiers could get two for the price of one. When she reached him, Katara threw herself at Zuko, latching her arms up over his shoulders and letting her momentum propel her forwards, wrapping her legs around his lean hips.

"Don't do anything stupid or you'll get us both killed, Zuko! There are soldiers coming right at you!" she growled in his ear immediately, pressing the side of her face to the scarred side of his, her lips at his ear.

For his part, Zuko handled the situation well. She'd been half expecting he would fire bend at her or at the very least that he would pull a knife on her. Instead she felt him tense against her, his strong, lean form bracing to catch her and hold her up. His arms came up around her, clutching her to him painfully tight and Katara winced at the embrace as she felt him spin her a little, carrying her easily and pressing her into a nearby wall.

Peeking over his shoulder she could see the soldiers still eyeing him suspiciously and Katara resorted to desperate measures, pulling back from him a little, Katara brought her hand up to cover his scar, dragging at his hair to better hide the tell-tale red blemish. Without pausing to think about what she was doing beyond acting to survive and to throw suspicion off the two of them long enough that the soldiers would get bored and forget that Zuko might be a fire bender, Katara ducked her head and pressed her lips firmly to his.

Zuko tensed, his mouth hard and unresponsive against hers until she pulled a little more viciously on his hair and nipped at his bottom lip punishingly. Her eyes rolled behind closed lids when he suddenly leaned into her, kissing her back fiercely and pressing her into the wall harder. She'd positioned herself rather unfortunately so that his hard, lean body was pressed against the most intimate part of her, her legs tight around his waist, her ankles locked against his back.

When he nipped her lips in return, Katara gasped at the sensation and she realised what a mistake she'd made when his tongue darted into her mouth, tangling with hers in a way that ought to be illegal. Her heart was racing in her chest for fear of being discovered by the soldiers, fear of being attacked by Zuko, and horror with herself when she felt delicious heat pouring through her body, emanating from him like she'd stepped into a steam-room. His lips and tongue were hot against hers, warming her chilled face and making her ache just a bit with the sudden and startling difference in temperature.

Her pulse stuttered in her veins as she felt the strangest brush of something against her. Not against her skin. More like there was something brushing against her chi – her very essence. Something hot and unforgiving as it surged against her and completely enveloped her chi, wrapping as tightly around her as Zuko's arms were around her waist. She felt a quivering sense of utter terror and just the hinted tingle of wonder when she realised it was his essence. His chi enveloped her own essence, threatening to overwhelm it.

She didn't know which one of them it was that emitted the groan at the entirely intimate and slightly uncomfortable yet totally thrilling feel of their chi so entwined. All she knew was that it made her brain go fuzzy and she found herself kissing him not only to hide his identity and her own until the soldiers got bored, but also because it felt completely intoxicating.

Katara kept one hand tangled in his hair, securely concealing his scar until such time that the soldiers left and he could pull his hood back up. The skin of his scar was silky beneath her fingers and Katara felt him tense as she brushed her thumb over it, intrigued. He broke away from her lips with a sharp gasp and Katara hissed in a breath between her teeth when he nuzzled his warm face into her neck, exposing the flesh there before pressing little wet kisses to the skin.

"Are they gone?" she heard him ask and a chill slithered down her spine - despite his overwhelming heat - at the sound of his voice, tight and controlled and utterly devoid of any emotion but anger. She loathed that voice. Peeking through slitted eyelids, she nearly closed them again in horror when she saw that the wretched soldiers had stopped advancing and lost interest in questioning Zuko. They were focusing on something else.

"They're watching," she breathed. She was trying not to pant as a result of the way he nipped and kissed her throat like a hungry beast. She marvelled at his ability to make it appear and even feel like he was into it, whilst she could still feel how tense and tight his body was between her legs – coiled like a viper and ready to strike at any moment.

She felt her cheeks beginning to turn pink as a gust of heat caressed her skin when Zuko sighed out an annoyed breath. He nipped her throat hard enough to leave a mark. Almost as though to punish her for the ludicrous position he'd found himself in. As though she hadn't thrown herself at him to protect his identity and save his life. The soldiers were leering in their direction, nudging each other like stupid children and clearly finding amusement and twisted pleasure in the show she and Zuko were putting on. Katara felt like she was being ripped apart and put back together in the wrong ways, horrified with herself that she'd just kissed and was still snuggling the enemy but hating herself all the more for the fact that her body and her essence were reacting to his touch and his attentions favourably.

What was wrong with her? Had she lost her mind?

"Three feet to the left is an alley," she whispered, scanning their surroundings carefully through her eyelashes. She hardly dared open her eyes wide enough to see without being spotted for an imposter by the soldiers.

"You want me to take you in an alley?" Zuko sneered against her neck, pressing into her harder, one hand clenching in the fabric of her clothes. Katara's cheeks burned crimson at his wording and his smug, patronising, wickedly amused tone.

"I want to get out of their sight so I can run for it," she corrected him. She nuzzled her own face into his cheek under the pretence of returning his affections before she nipped his jaw harshly, causing him to twitch and buck against her slightly.

Unhooking her ankles from around him quickly, Katara lowered her legs back to the ground, standing on her tip toes a bit under the pretence of kissing him again. He'd begun to chuckle cruelly until she pressed her lips to his severely, pouring her disgust with herself and her annoyance with him – not to mention her hatred of him – into the second kiss. As she did so - her mind threatening to go blank and not care about anything but those licks of heat that seemed to emanate from him – Katara tangled her free hand into the front of his clothing and half dragged him around the corner and into the alley.

She heard a catcall from the street, the soldiers laughing and jeering now, sounding like they might follow to see more of the show. As soon as they rounded the corner and were out of sight, Katara jerked back from his lips, hissing at the unpleasant feeling of ripping her essence free of his own suffocating one.

"Run!" she commanded. She tugged sharply on the front of the travelling robes he wore before she made a break for it down the alley to the opening she could see at the far end through a little sliver of space.

It was too narrow for them both to fit through and the rest was a five foot wooden fence. She could hear Zuko pounding along the alley a step behind her and she realised she was going to have to water bend or jump the fence. And with the soldiers now shouting from the mouth of the alley and suspecting foul play, bending didn't seem wise. Her eyes zeroed in on a stack of wooden crates and she used them as her springboard, leaping onto them and using their added height to propel her over the fence.

Zuko followed right behind her and Katara had to crouch into a squat on the landing to keep from being hit by him as he sailed over her to land a few feet beyond her. Springing right back up, she glanced around quickly.

"This way," he growled. His voice sent another chill down her spine as he snagged her elbow before tearing off down the darkened street. He seemed to know where he was going and their running had drawn the attention of more soldiers, so Katara chose to simply follow him as he led a merry dance through the streets, stumping the soldiers and outwitting them.

As she leapt over another fence behind him, she was about to keep running but he spun as he landed and caught her before she could hit the ground. Katara cried out in surprise as he spun with her momentum before hauling her right through a small wooden door just next to the fence. He kicked it closed and used his fire bending to melt the metal lock shut before turning on her and slamming her into the wall in the dark and abandoned room.

"Who are you?" he snarled into her face. He curled his hand around her throat, pinning her by it.

In the other, he held a fireball threateningly, as though he would throw it at her if she didn't answer. She didn't at all doubt he would. He was a ruthless killer with little conscience. Despite the way her mind demanded she claw at the hand cutting off her air supply, Katara reached for her hood, meaning to lower it.

"You again!" he suddenly said before she could reveal her identity. "You've been following me. Who are you and how do you know who I am?"

Katara rolled her eyes at the cold fury in his voice before she lowered her hood away from her head, revealing her face and hair to his narrowed gold gaze. She stared back at him defiantly as he glared at her for a minute in complete silence, his features devoid of any expression but anger. She thought for a moment that he must not recognise her.

Until he suddenly took a big step back, freeing her throat to wipe the back of his hand against his mouth.

" _You_?" he cursed. "You kissed me! What is wrong with you, Katara?"

He looked revolted, wiping his hand against his mouth again before spitting on the floor.

"Gee Katara, thanks for saving my life even though I've been nothing but a selfish bastard who stalked you across the world and nearly killed you and your friends in many unsuccessful attempts to capture the Avatar," she bit out sarcastically, glaring at him. "Yeah, no problem, Zuko."

He narrowed his eyes on her at the mention of his name and no doubt at her rudeness.

"Assaulting me does not count as saving my life, water bender!" he snapped. "What the hell are you doing here? Why were you following me?"

"Who said I was following you?" Katara countered. She stepped away from the wall where he'd pinned her and stalked off through the building he'd dragged her into. It was an abandoned house. Most of the furnishings and things had been looted, leaving it bare and devoid of much at all. Narrowing her eyes and wondering why he'd brought her there, Katara stomped through the place.

She smirked when she climbed some stairs – with Zuko, still snarling, on her heels – and found a small palette where he must've set up camp for the night. She'd yet to do so, having been following him most of the day. He'd escaped her for a little while when she slipped off to the bathroom, and this was clearly where he'd gone. She could tell they were his things because she'd been watching him long enough to recognise them.

"You  _have_  been following me," he accused. "You're not exactly subtle. Where are your little friends? Where's the Avatar? And since when is it you stalking me and not the other way around?"

Katara smirked at him for his wording, watching him flick a ball of fire towards a small lamp by his things to light the room without needing to hold the fire himself. It was sealed closed against the cold wind outside – though she could hear it whistling through the small cracks in the window frames. He'd chosen what seemed to be an abandoned study, rather than one of the bedrooms, and it had no windows. She frowned at the idea. Windows would make for an easier escape, but then again, the building was abandoned and he was a strong fighter. Maybe if he was ambushed he meant to fight his way out – avoiding detection by hiding somewhere that no one would see the light of his fire.

"If I lack subtlety so much, you'd have known it was me and you'd know why I've been following you," she informed him. She moved over near the lamp he'd lit before sitting down on the ground and taking out her rucksack – which she'd taken to wearing against her skin under her clothes for better warmth.

She caught the way Zuko's eyes widened momentarily as she lifted her many layers of clothes to get at the meagre bag of supplies. He narrowed them on her again at her evasiveness.

"Answer me," he commanded.

"I'm doing the same thing you're doing," Katara shrugged. "Trying to find my travelling companions after being separated from them in that blizzard a few weeks ago. We were on Appa when it struck and I was blown free of his saddle."

Zuko curled his lip.

"Then why are you following me?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be trying to find them?"

"I am trying to find them," she replied. "And so are you. And since you managed to track us while we rode a flying bison all the way across the world and back again, I knew that if anyone could find Aang, it would be you. I intended to merely follow you in your search for them and your uncle until they were found."

"Then do tell what you were doing ambushing me and kissing me," he demanded. He looked like he didn't know if he should be flattered by her belief in his ability to find Aang or disgusted with her for changing her plans and kissing him instead.

"The sun came out and you were like a Morning Glory, soaking up its rays in plain sight. Your hood fell back and those stupid soldiers saw." Katara shrugged. "And you're no use to me dead or imprisoned…. It's not like I know much about tracking the Avatar. Usually I'm one of the ones being tracked. I just reacted."

"By kissing me?" he asked,

"Oh for crying out loud, would you stop saying it?!" Katara lost her temper with him. "I didn't think about what I would do after calling out to you and I knew if I didn't do something, you'd throw me off you and demand to know who I was, drawing the attention of those idiots all the more. A random case of mistaken identity and subsequent fight is more noticeable and memorable than two teenagers kissing in an alley."

He narrowed his eyes on her but didn't say anything else and Katara turned her attention to digging into her rucksack for something to eat. She had a bag of dried fruits and nuts and she hadn't eaten in hours. She was also shivering. Her body seemed to be going into a mild state of shock after being pressed against - practically enveloped by - someone so warm and it had thrown her body temperature out of whack.

Zuko watched her a minute longer as she began to eat her food before he started muttering under his breath too low for her to hear. He threw himself down on the palette he'd set up earlier and began rummaging in his pockets for some of the food she'd seen him buying. A strip of jerky was all he pulled out and Katara watched him as he began to chew on one end of it.

The silence between them was strained and awkward as they ate. Katara found herself huddling closer to the lamp he'd lit, trying to absorb some of its warmth. She nearly leapt out of her skin when Zuko nudged her with his foot.

"Hey!" she hissed. She looked up, worried he was being mean. The angry words she'd been poised to spit died on her tongue when he handed her a strip of jerky. "Oh… um… thanks, I guess."

She offered him the bag of fruit and nuts she was eating from in return, figuring he must only be offering her some of his food if he wanted some of hers in return. He eyed the bag for a minute before cupping one hand, waiting for her to pour some of the snacks into it. He nodded when he wanted her to stop pouring, but still didn't speak again.

"I take it this means you've changed your plans about continuing to stalk me?" he said finally, after what felt like hours. The tension was thick in the air. Katara knew it stemmed from the awkwardness of the searing kisses they'd shared in the alley and the burning hatred between them from their past.

"Why bother pretending that I'm not following you now that you know I am?" she shrugged. "I haven't changed my mind about you being able to lead me to Aang – just about whether or not I'll have to interact with you while you do it."

He glared at her.

"What makes you think I'm just going to lead you to the Avatar? Or that I'll let you tag along with me?" he demanded. Katara watched as he dug into his bag and withdrew a battered looking teapot and two cups.

He took the lid off the pot and held it out towards her. Katara realised he didn't have any water to put in it and she narrowed her eyes before summoning her bending power to draw some of the heavy snow from outside in through the house to fill the pot.

"What makes you think I won't just follow you and turn up all the time annoying you if you try to stop me?" Katara countered. She handed the teapot back to him when it was filled with water. She was grateful when he took it without a word before withdrawing a small box of tea from his bag and putting some of the leaves in the water. He replaced the lid and held the pot by the handle before using the closed fist of his other hand to fire bend a steady flame to the bottom of the metal until it began to whistle, indicating that it was boiled.

"I can take you in a fight, Water Bender," he reminded her. "And I'm not afraid to hurt you."

"But you won't," she said knowingly. She took the cup he poured for her, curling her hands around it greedily and soaking as much of the heat as she could into her skin.

"Nothing has ever stopped me before," he said as he sipped his own tea. He still looked like he didn't like it very much. In fact, she got the feeling he only drank it for the warmth it provided and the familiarity of sharing a pot of tea while in company.

"No, but without your uncle around, you're just as on edge and lonely as I am without Sokka and Aang," Katara said quietly. "It makes sense to travel together until we find them."

"And if I find my Uncle first?" he asked.

"Your uncle isn't a ruthless killer with no conscience and he wouldn't hand me over to the Fire Nation. Besides, it's not like  _you_  could do hand me over to collect the reward for my capture. And it's not like finding him would change your goal to find Aang."

"You'd stick around?" He snorted. "But I bet that if I found the Avatar first, you'd probably freeze me to the floor and leave me for dead. Sounds like you need me but I don't need you for anything… and in case you've forgotten, my uncle might not be ruthless and without conscience, but I am."

"I'm not scared of you, Zuko." Katara rolled her eyes at him.

She nearly had a heart attack when he suddenly lunged at her, tackling her across the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

She grappled with him across the floor, rolling and cursing when she hit her elbow at a bad angle. He tried to pin her but Katara bucked him off her before he could, flipping them furiously and pinning his wrists to the floor to prevent him from fire bending at her. She found herself straddling him, Zuko laid on his back on the dusty floor beneath her. She'd dropped her tea cup when he'd lunged at her, spilling her tea on the floor. And she was annoyed about it.

He didn't move beneath her, stilling just as suddenly as he'd attacked and Katara glared at him.

"What did you do that for…?" she snarled before uttering a shriek of surprise when he flipped them both until she was pinned beneath him, her legs now bent at an uncomfortable angle. He'd clearly waited for her to lower her guard just a bit before turning on her once more and Katara snarled at him in fury when she found herself thoroughly pinned beneath him this time, unable to budge at all.

Tendrils of fear whispered through her when she tried to fight him off her and couldn't. Due to the way she'd straddled him, he was now lying between her spread legs, her hips cradling his. He pinned her hands either side of her face and he trapped her bent knees against her ribs, pinning them there with his arms.

"What use are you to me if you can't even protect yourself from me?" he asked coldly. He glared into her face, his cold expression never changing. He simply looked angry and determined.

Katara heard the little whimper that left her as she scanned his face for some hint that he actually meant to hurt her. The warmth emitting from him didn't at all help her suddenly racing heart and Katara realised with a jolt that she'd stopped fighting.

"I've protected myself from you plenty of times," she argued.

"You've lost to me in a fight plenty of times," he corrected. Katara narrowed her eyes as she thought of the only time they'd actually battled one-on-one – at the North Pole. When he had bested her.

"You made me spill my tea," she accused. She was annoyed with him when she couldn't offer much rebuttal to his assertion. They often outwitted his plans for capturing them as a group, but in a hand-to-hand fight she knew he was stronger than her. She also knew that fighting him anymore now would just be a waste of energy.

"That's all you have to say?" he demanded. Katara could tell he was shocked she wasn't trying to buck him off of her or demanding to be released. The truth was that as unnerving as it was to be staring into his scarred, angry face and as unsettled as she was by the feel of his essence brushing against her and the way his body pressed against hers, she didn't really want him to move.

He was so warm and she was still shivering with cold in the freezing room.

"What were you hoping for?" she asked rather than answering his question.

He narrowed his eyes at her, clearly confused by her lack of anger and lack of indignation over being held down so intimately. Honestly, Katara was too busy soaking up his warmth to care about insisting he move or anything else. The cold had been draining her energy and she'd been running around all day – travelling between towns and trying to locate her friends. She was tired and she wouldn't mind just closing her eyes and going to sleep. It was only early, but Katara hadn't slept well since she'd lost her friends.

Being a fugitive, not to mention a young woman travelling alone, had made her wary and she woke at the slightest sounds. It wasn't as though she had enough money to stop at hotels along the way, so mostly – like Zuko – she'd been sleeping in abandoned buildings where she could be out of the snow. Zuko might have spent almost all of the journey since the North Pole chasing her and hunting her – moving as her enemy – but at least he was familiar in a world full of strangers.

"Aren't you going to demand that I get off you?" he asked. He seemed slightly confused by her answers.

"Would my demanding it make you do it?" she wanted to know, answering his questions with questions.

"No," he replied, smirking coldly.

"Then why would I waste my breath?" she asked. "You'll get off me when you're ready. Or you won't. Either way until you do, you're warm and I'm cold."

"Oh, so you're not trembling in fear of me?" he sneered. Katara rolled her eyes.

If she was being completely honest, the truth was that Zuko did scare her a little. He was so angry, so volatile and so ruthless that he unnerved her. She also didn't particularly trust him but she did think that he wasn't going to hurt her unless he had to. From what she'd seen, despite his ruthlessness, Prince Zuko had to work at being a heartless monster. He had to make an effort to be so uncaring and cold. He wouldn't just hurt her for the sake of it. At least, she really hoped he wouldn't.

"I already told you that I'm not scared of you," she rolled her eyes. "I'm just cold."

Narrowing his eyes at her even more, Zuko looked like he didn't know what to make of her. He obviously wasn't used to dealing with a water bender. Katara might've been known for her moments when she lost her temper about something, but like the element she wielded, she was good at going with the flow when it suited her. And if going with the flow with Zuko meant stumping him with her less than furious attitude over being bested and her denial of her fear that suited Katara just fine.

Frowning at her in annoyance, Zuko released her wrists before getting off her. He didn't offer to help her to her feet before he walked back across the room to where he'd left his cup and she narrowed her eyes at him when he used his bending to re-heat his tea. He did the same to the pot and Katara used her bending to pour herself a fresh cup of tea as she moved back to where she'd been sitting, this time digging out the sleeping bag she'd stolen and spreading it out.

She was still shivering as she climbed into in, grateful for the added protection against the cold. She could feel Zuko watching her as she fussed about, settling into her sleeping bag more fully, for the time being only using it to cover her legs and wrap around her waist while she was still sitting up to finish her meal and drink her tea. Katara knew it was still somewhat light outside, but in the windowless room it was dark enough that she could sleep. Even with Zuko's lamp still burning.

She didn't dare to look at him when she settled herself more comfortably, still sipping her tea. She looked at her own hands, watching the tea in her cup as wisps of steam curled from it in the cold room. The sound of his footsteps drew her attention and Katara frowned when she saw him going to the door.

The idea made her uncomfortable. She didn't at all approve of the notion of being trapped alone in the confined room with him. Especially with the door closed. She knew they wouldn't suffocate – there were cracks around the door that allowed plenty of air through. She also knew that having it closed would better heat the space and keep the chilled wind out. But the idea of being so confined with Prince Zuko made Katara nervous.

Like a sleeping dragon, he could turn on her, spewing fire over her at any time. There was also the added tension that she suspected came from the way his essence and hers seemed to call out to each other. She didn't understand that at all. She'd never heard of it happening with anyone else. Sokka was a non-bender and her brother, so she'd never felt her chi wrap around him. And Aang was the Avatar. Even when she hugged him, she never noticed anything like what had happened when she'd been trapped in Zuko's embrace and kissing his lips.

She hadn't spent any time with any other fire-benders either, so she didn't know if it was something unique to fire benders or if it was just Zuko. It unnerved her. Mostly because it felt amazing. She didn't think she'd ever been so warm. The feel of his essence cloaking hers was nothing she could really described. She'd been burned before and it didn't really feel like that… she supposed it did, only without the pain of a burn. It felt more like sinking into a hot bathtub full of water or like that mild tickling sensation of heat just before a burn.

And the fact that it was so cold amid the wild snowstorms ravaging the land meant that the amount of heat he gave off was addictive.

Katara bit her lip on her protests as he closed the door, sealing the two of them inside with only the small, solitary lamp he carried as a light source. The diminutive lamp cast wild shadows on the walls and across his face as he stalked back across the room to where he'd set up his palette for the night. The confined space – no more than two meters squared worth of room – felt stifling as he stood for a moment. Katara watched with trepidation as he pulled his travelling cloak off himself and laid it next to his palette before he climbed inside his own sleeping bag.

How he could even think about removing layers evaded her, though she knew she ought to as well. If she went to sleep now with her parka still on, she would shiver through the whole day tomorrow without being wrapped in the warmth of her sleeping bag. She knew it, but she was so cold that she was loathe to do it. Biting her lip, Katara drained her tea cup and set it aside before she copied him, wriggling around until she could remove her parka. She laid it over her rucksack and squirmed about until she was stretched out on her stomach, wrapped completely in her sleeping bag and reaching for the parka, which she folded up to use as a pillow.

Katara laid on the far side of the lamp, and she turned her face to look past it to where Zuko now lay in his own sleeping bag. He lay on his back with one arm folded behind his head and his eyes were closed. She lay on his left-hand side and Katara felt her fingers begin to itch as she stared at the sight of the angry red scar that covered his left cheek, his left eye and slashed across his forehead all the way back to mangle his left ear as well. Part of her itched with the need to try to heal the old wound. Another part recalled the silky feel of the blemish beneath her fingers when she'd been kissing him and hiding the mark.

She blinked when he suddenly opened his eye to glare at her, catching her staring and making Katara blush. Despite feeling awkward about being caught, she didn't look away from him. She suspected that would just make him angry, thinking she was staring at his scar and judging or pitying him. He glared at her for a moment longer before he jerked his arm from beneath his head and flicked his wrist, sucking the fire from the lamp between them. Katara watched with just the tiniest bit of awe as he let the flame dance over his long fingers before he seemed to suck the fire right back into himself and cast the room into darkness.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

The darkness was worse, Zuko decided as he lay tense and on edge in the blackened room with Katara two feet away from him. The tension was thick and stifling in the small, dark room and he despised it. This was her fault. If she'd never been following him, he'd never have ended up having to spend the night with her.

If he were to be completely honest, the sight of her had actually made him feel better. He'd noticed the young woman tailing him almost immediately when she'd begun following him three days ago. For a time he'd thought it coincidence; that she was just a traveller moving in the same direction as him. He'd grown steadily more convinced that wasn't the case, however, when she seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

The fact that his stalker had turned out to be the Avatar's girlfriend was actually a relief. A relief and an annoyance and a balm all in one. He didn't do very well being alone for long periods of time and he'd been alone for weeks as he tried to locate his uncle. The fact was that he was a stranger in an unfamiliar and hostile land where the Fire Nation loathed him for being the wanted, disgraced and exiled son of the Fire Lord and the rest of the world feared or loathed him for being the Prince of the Fire Nation.

He didn't like to think about the fact that he'd shared food and tea with Katara with as much ease as he might've with his uncle. He especially didn't like to think about the way it had felt when he'd suddenly found himself with her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, her warm breath by his ear and then her lips on his. Even when he'd had no clue who she was as she clung to him and kissed him, Zuko had felt something inside him roar to life – wakening and wrapping around her possessively. He'd never felt anything like it before in all his life. He knew it had been their chi brushing together and it had entirely unnerved him.

He didn't like how it had felt like she was a soothing drink of cool water after a long, hard day of training or walking. He didn't like the way her lips had felt against his or the way her tongue had been like silk against his own. Damn it all to the fieriest pits of hell, she was the enemy! He'd hunted her across the world. He wasn't supposed to be pleased to see her and his essence wasn't supposed to call out to her like it was.

As he laid there in the darkened room, he could literally feel the tremors and shivers running through her. She was clearly freezing. The irony that she was from the South Pole and yet was still cold was no lost on him, but it did call into sharp focus his own problem. The few rays of sunshine that had peeked through the snow clouds had warmed and revived him somewhat, but he knew he was weakening. Fire benders could tolerate the cold better than most, but it sapped away his strength. And the lack of sunlight depleted his ability to fire bend.

Unlike the other elements, fire had to be created. It was the reason fire benders were the most powerful. The other three nations did their bending by manipulating elements already at their disposal. Air and Earth Benders had their element right at their fingertips all the time. Water benders had it slightly harder and most – like Katara – carried a canteen to use to bend when they needed it. Though Zuko also knew that water benders could call on the water in all living things to bend if they wished.

If she wanted to, Katara could rip the life-giving water from the grass and the trees to use if she so chose. But not fire benders. Fire benders had to work harder, had to be stronger and had to have more endurance than the other benders because they had to create their own element. Every time he used fire bending, he had to call upon his own essence – his own strength – to create the element he wielded with deadly precision.

And every time he did, it left him a little weaker. The sun tended to revitalise him, but it had been so scarce for weeks now that he was running low on reserves. He might be warm enough to get by – but he could use something to boost his power back up. And without access to the sun, the only other way to do so was to not have to entirely warm his own body for a little while.

The trouble was, Zuko didn't like to be touched. In fact, he hated it. Not to mention that he didn't really know anyone well enough to want to touch them for any purpose other than to hurt them. Kissing Katara was the closest he'd come to any form of non-combative contact with another human being in a very long time. Iroh might at times clap him on the shoulder or guide him through a new set of bending moves, but that tended to be the extent of his contact with other people.

The idea of touching Katara again repulsed and intrigued him in equal measure. And it was making the strained energy between them all the tenser. He could practically feel that tension pushing against his skin like a thick and stifling humidity. The chill in the room was sapping his strength despite his higher-than-average body temperature and Katara's teeth had begun to chatter with cold.

Closing his eyes, Zuko tried to ignore the urge to end the tension and put a stop to her shivering. He didn't want to lay another finger on her. Not really. He was just cold and tired and she was familiar. At least, as familiar as one's enemy could be amid a town full of hostile strangers. He was loathe to admit that she most likely had saved his life when she'd ambushed him and kissed him in the street. He'd been so tired and so cold that the feel of the sun had called to him with too much fervour for him to deny.

When his hood had fallen back, revealing his scar and thus his identity, Zuko had barely noticed. The fact was he was dangerously low on reserves of warmth and pretty soon he was going to lose his ability to bend effectively. Oh, he would still be able to create fire – he could do that with his dying breath – but the effects manifesting it had on his body would begin to show. Even boiling the water for the tea he'd shared with her had sapped his energy.

He hadn't even wanted a cup of tea. He'd just spent too long with Uncle Iroh and so had made tea out of habit more than need or even any want to consume the liquid. Zuko listened in the tense silence of the room as Katara began to shift about, trying to get warm and trying to get comfortable. Zuko knew the feeling. Now that he was sitting still, even inside his sleeping bag, he could feel the insidious creep of the cold ghosting over his body and sapping more of his strength.

He should have stolen some coins and paid for a hotel room. He'd thought about it. He just hadn't wanted to bother. Searching for his uncle was proving as difficult as searching for the Avatar had been when he'd first been exiled. There was not even a whisper of a clue that his uncle had passed through any of the towns Zuko was travelling through. He'd taken to asking after the Avatar too, just to try and get a reading on where he might be. Logically it made sense to Zuko that Iroh would head for Aang, thinking Zuko would be doing the same.

In fact, it might prove advantageous to have Katara tagging along with him. Her brother and the Avatar would undoubtedly be searching for her too. He'd seen how ridiculously loyal they all were to each other too many times to doubt that fact. Besides, even a tentative enemy was better company than his own.

Zuko didn't know how long he laid there in the dark and the cold of the room, the tense silence between them easing just a bit as she slipped towards slumber. Her breathing kept beginning to even out before it would hitch again in the dark – whether out of fear of him, fear of something else or just the terrible cold, Zuko didn't know. He was sure that the moon was high and the night deep when he finally lost patience with her incessantly chattering teeth.

Rolling onto his side, Zuko moved the lamp he carried with him out of the way between their two bedrolls – not even needing light to see it and move it.

"Hey!" Katara hissed. She went tense, immediately going on the offensive when he grabbed hold of the edge of her sleeping bag and dragged her, inside it, across the small space separating the two of them.

"Zuko? What are you doing?" she demanded, lowering her voice a bit when she recalled it was him. He could hear her suspicion and her annoyance – with just the slightest hint of fear in her tone. It suddenly occurred to him that she was even younger than his eighteen years and that she'd been travelling as a young woman, alone, for three weeks. She was probably fearful he was going to force himself on her.

No wonder she kept waking every few minutes. She was paranoid she'd be grabbed and taken advantage of.

He didn't answer her question as he hauled her closer. He was going to force himself on her, just not in the way she feared. He had no desire to deflower the fierce water tribe princess – he just wanted to borrow her body heat for a while.

"Zuko!" she hissed when he curled back the coverings of his sleeping bag before peeling hers open.

"I can warm you," was all he offered as an explanation. Unwilling to admit that he needed her heat as much as she needed his.

Katara squawked in surprised when Zuko dragged her right out of her bedroll and into his own, slotting her into the narrow space next to him.

"I don't want you to warm me," she was protesting. "I don't want you to touch me."

"And I don't want to listen to your teeth chatter all night as you shiver. Now, be quiet," he growled in response, annoyed by her disgusted tone. He hauled her sleeping bag over the two of them, flattening it out so it covered them both inside his.

When it was done, he seized her shoulders and nudged her with his knee until she was lying on her side with her back to him.

"Stop it, Zuko!" she snapped, struggling slightly.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Katara, I'm not trying to assault you. I'm try to keep us both warm enough that we don't die during the night!" Zuko snapped, losing his temper with her when she kept squirming as he tried to hold her still and so take full advantage of her warmth.

"By manhandling me in the dark and dragging me into your bedroll?" she demanded.

"Aren't you from the South Pole?" he demanded. He flicked his hair out of his eyes to glare at her. "Shouldn't you be used to the idea of sharing body heat?"

"Not with someone who's tried to kill me!" she retorted.

"Well, if you don't shut your mouth and hold still, I'm going to try again," he growled in annoyance. She elbowed him in the ribs in response. Zuko thought seriously about setting her on fire but before he could, he suddenly felt the brush of her essence against his.

She seemed to feel it too because she stopped struggling in his grip and laid still – if completely tense – beside him in the dark. Taking advantage of her stillness, Zuko looped his arm over her hip and she squirmed again when he began to burrow his hand under the layers of shirts she wore.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice slightly breathless. Zuko wondered if it was out of fear or if his touch made her nervous. He didn't bother answering her when he finally managed to locate her skin beneath the many layers she wore.

Snaking his bare forearm up the front of her shirt, he pressed his warm skin against hers and he knew he didn't imagine it when a little morsel of sound escaped her at the warmth of his skin against hers. He knew because he'd most effectively quashed his own sound of pleasure at the feel of the warmth. She tensed when he slipped his hand a little higher, encountering the bindings she wore beneath her clothes to hold her feminine wiles in place.

Zuko made sure not to delve his hand under those, though he did shuffle until his wrist rested between the twin mounds adorning her chest and his palm was flat against her sternum. He snaked the other arm beneath her neck, bending it back until his hand was under his own head and his bicep was cushioning her cold cheek. He also spooned himself right up against her back, tangling his outer ankle between both of hers.

"This must be some horrid nightmare," she said when he finally stopped moving. Zuko could feel her rubbing her cool cheek against the warmth of his bare bicep muscle as though trying to absorb as much of his heat as she could. Ordinarily he might've minded the idea of her taking his body heat but almost immediately she began emitting much more of her own and he was taking full advantage of it.

The heat was glorious and it seeped into his skin like much needed relief. Slowly, despite their dislike for one another, Zuko felt her relax in his hold, the tension easing out of her muscles and leaving her soft and pliant in his arms. The feel of her feminine form so intimately pressed against him set him of edge but Zuko closed his eyes and did his best to block it out.

His unfamiliarity with being touched by anyone – let alone being pressed so closely against someone – wasn't enough to override the heat and the effect of having her pressed so close in the otherwise cold room. The fact that her chi was brushing tentatively against his own as a balm to the raging inferno beginning to stream back into him from her warmth was soothing to his fried nerve endings and Zuko let his eyes slowly close.

"Goodnight, Zuko," she whispered sleepily when he was almost asleep. Zuko didn't bother to answer her verbally. Instead he burrowed the tip of his nose through her hair until it pressed against the back of her neck and he fell asleep with the water bender in his arms.


	3. Chapter 3

Katara woke feeling like she was enveloped in a toasted marshmallow – warm and comfortable and feeling better rested than she had been in weeks. Without opening her eyes she writhed slightly, yearning to stretch her warm and pliant muscles.

"Don't," someone suddenly hissed against the back of her neck, warm breath caressing her skin and making the tiny hairs there stand on end. She knew that voice too well with its cold, controlled and angry tone.

"Zuko?" she gasped, wiggling more.

"Stop moving," he practically groaned. He gripped her even tighter and Katara became aware that she was curled up in his arms and pressed very intimately against him. Or, more appropriately, intimate parts of her were pressed dangerously close to a rigid and pointed part of him.

Katara's eyes flew open as she realised what it was. She'd been foolish a while ago when she'd met Jet and the Freedom Fighters. Not to mention she spent all of her time camping with two teenage boys. She was no stranger to just what was poking at her behind.

"That better not be what I think it is, Zuko," Katara bit out. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment even as she said so, knowing exactly what it was even as she scooted her bottom forwards and away from him.

"I've told you once before that I rise with the sun," Zuko retorted in a tight voice. Katara nearly choked on the gasp of shock she sucked into herself at his blunt admittance and his crude words. He'd said the same thing to her at the North Pole during the lunar eclipse just before he'd bested her in a fight. The reminder now in reference to his erect body part was not a welcome one.

"Let me go," she demanded when she found that his arms were tangled around her intimately. His palm was flat against her sternum, his arm deliciously warm and pressed to her taut stomach.

"It's not even dawn yet, and another blizzard kicked up during the night," he informed her. "Just… stop squirming and go back to sleep, Water Bender."

Katara raised her eyebrows wondering how he could possibly know what it was like outside.

"How do you know?" she asked. She frowned as she began trying to roll towards him. She was careful to keep from brushing against the cause of their shared mortification, even as she had to fish his arm from between her breasts and drag it over her ribs and to her back so she could face him.

"I'm a fire bender," he replied. His eyes were squeezed closed and a tight frown marred his face. "I wasn't kidding about the sun. I know when dawn breaks. I can feel it. And I know about the blizzard because it knocked something over downstairs and blew something from the alley in through one of the windows during the night. I checked."

"I didn't know you got up," Katara frowned.

"I know," he said. His frown lessened slightly and Katara wondered how deeply she'd been sleeping that she hadn't woken when he'd struggled out of the tight bedroll they were sharing. She was uncomfortably aware of him suddenly, including the way his essence seemed to have wrapped completely around hers. She felt like she was being pressed with heat on all sides.

She also realised that he was right about how cold it was as she felt a stray breeze blow under the door and kiss across her flesh. Suddenly Katara felt no desire to leave the warmth of the sleeping bag or Zuko's presence.

"You realise this means there's little use trying to go anywhere today?" she asked him quietly. She slipped her arm over his hip and kicked her outer leg over both of his. She burrowed her face into his warm chest, not even really thinking about how intimate and inappropriate it was as her fingers teased the hem of his shirt until she could snake her arm up his warm back inside his shirt, pressing more of her flesh to his and marvelling at how warm he was.

"You realise you're not helping?" he countered from above her head since she'd burrowed into his chest, the tip of her nose pressed to his neck. She could feel his pulse racing beneath it.

Realising with a jolt how intimate a positon she'd just initiated, Katara sighed against his collarbone and decided that the awkwardness could wait until she wasn't so cold and wasn't trapped in a sleeping bag with him. Curling her leg further around him, Katara scooted a little closer to him, using her heel to draw his warm thigh between both of hers and biting her lips at the feel of how warm he was.

"Just be quiet and go back to sleep, Zuko," she said. She used her arm against his back to pull herself closer to him until her front was flush against his and tried to ignore the prodding heat of his problem against her stomach. The key word was 'tried' because Katara was having trouble ignoring it when that part of him was even hotter to touch than everywhere else.

She pursed her lips, her eyes closed as she tried to get to sleep again with him prodding her. She could feel how tense he was from the way his nails were digging ever so slightly into her back where his warm arm was inside the back of her shirt. She also found that beneath her own hand inside his shirt, there were several scars under her fingers. She could feel them on his back. They were silky and soft like burns, and the skin didn't feel tight or puckered – suggesting they were old burns.

Without meaning to, Katara found herself tracing their patterns with her fingertips.

"Try thinking about all the villages you've burned," she said when she felt a twitch against her stomach.

"Try not doing that," Zuko retorted angrily. He twitched his shoulders away from her and clearly not pleased with her suggestion.

Even as he said it Katara imagined she could feel his essence sliding teasingly against her own, brushing against hers in what felt almost like a caress. She bit her bottom lip and nearly laughed when she realised it was most likely as a result of whatever he was thinking about – which most certainly did not seem to be the villages he'd burned to the ground as he hunted Aang.

Despite the terrible history between the two of them and the fact that he'd been her enemy as he'd chased her and her friends all over the world, Katara couldn't help the little giggle that escaped her and the utter absurdity of the moment.

"Bitch," he accused angrily when she laughed. Katara responded by nipping his collarbone. She didn't even think about it before she did so and her breath caught in her throat when his hips bucked slightly against her, bringing his warm thigh higher between her own until it reached their junction.

Katara felt his chi respond when hers squirmed at the suddenly blinding heat pressed intimately between her legs. Her insides clenched and Katara suddenly didn't feel like giggling anymore. She felt her fingers press insistently against his back without conscious thought to do so and she realised with a terrible jolt that the intimacy of their essences so interwoven and entwined was messing with her body and with her mind.

If she was being honest, Katara was no stranger to acts of depravity. When she'd run into Jet, she'd been enamoured with him and she'd surrendered her virtue and her body to him in a wild fit of defiance and need. And right then as she laid so entwined with Zuko, Katara could feel that need rearing its ugly and depraved head again. The very thought unnerved her.

When she'd encountered Jet, Katara had been swept up by his story of losing his people and his yearning to strike back at the Fire Nation for all they had done to him and to the world. Katara had known the feeling and been overcome to find similar feelings in as charming and handsome a package as Jet. But there was a big difference between Jet and Zuko.

And unfortunately she couldn't say that it was that one of them was less ruthless and more conscionable than the other. The only difference was that while she'd believed at the time that Jet was a good person with the best of intentions, she  _knew_  Zuko wasn't. His nails dug into her back and Katara bit her lip, trying to get a hold of herself. It wouldn't do to be attracted to Zuko, even passingly.

She was using him to find her friends and that was that. They weren't friends. They certainly weren't going to be lovers.

"Don't do that again," he warned her in that cold voice of his. Katara marvelled at his ability to sound so in control when she could  _feel_  his control slipping.

"You're supposed to be thinking about the people you've slaughtered and the villages you've burned and all the terrible things you've done," Katara replied coldly, trying to think about other horrible things too. "Not about whatever it is you're currently thinking about."

She didn't dare mention the feel of his chi entwined with hers as it seemed to caress not just her body but her very soul. She didn't think either of them would survive acknowledging that strange occurrence.

"Stop caressing me and nipping me then," he spat. He jerked back from her far enough to glare into her face furiously.

It was a mistake. The minute she could see his face, Katara found her eyes straying to his lips, suddenly recalling the way they'd felt against hers the day before and she knew then that she needed to get away from him. Otherwise they were going to do something they would regret.

Jerking back from him further, Katara hissed at the feel of his nails and his hot hand on her back sliding over her skin as she moved back from him.

"Let go of me," she demanded, glaring at him when he held onto her a bit tighter.

"No," he snapped. Katara marvelled at his ability to say so much while uttering so little. His many meanings behind that one word came through loud and clear. He didn't have to argue with her about it still being the middle of the night. He didn't have to mention the blizzard raging outside their small haven. He didn't have to mention that it was freezing right outside their shared sleeping bag and that if she got out, she'd just climb right back in a few minutes later when the cold proved too much. He managed to say all that and more with one annoyed facial expression and one uttered word.

Narrowing her eyes at him in frustration, Katara knew she really needed to get away from him. She didn't trust Zuko one bit and, more importantly, she was no longer sure she could trust herself around him. She didn't at all like him, nor was she attracted to him. He was cruel and cold and terrible. But unfortunately he managed to be all of those things inside one terribly warm and rather attractive package.

Silently cursing her own stupidity and her own rotten luck to have been separated from Sokka and Aang only to instead end up with Zuko, Katara did the only thing she could think of the alleviate the tension between them. Burrowing right back into him, her nails digging into his back just a bit, Katara buried her face in his chest and slotted herself right back into his warmth. She could swear she heard him snort even as the sound of his teeth grinding filled her ears but Katara ignored him. Pretending he was a warm pillow, she snuggled into him wrapping her arms and legs around him tightly and refusing to lift her face from his chest.

"You're insane," he informed her matter-of-factly several tense minutes later but Katara ignored that too. She closed her eyes tightly and focused on trying to go back to sleep, even if she could feel the effect her feminine body pressed against his masculine one was having. His teeth grinding a little louder, Zuko squirmed slightly against her, his thigh sliding back between both of hers and pressing against the radiating warmth she could feel between her legs. Katara bit her lip at the intimate position, trying her hardest to hold completely still and not writhe against the sensation.

When he did it again, slower this time, Katara got the feeling he was tormenting her on purpose.

"Stop it, Zuko," she hissed against his chest, digging her nails into his back again.

His cruel chuckle ruffled her hair slightly but he stopped moving. Katara laid there tense in his arms for what felt like hours, listening to the sound of the wind howling outside. She didn't know how she'd slept through it in the first place. It howled and whistled through the house they'd broken into. She could hear signs and other things being blown about outside their room, tossed wildly on the wind.

She could also feel the driving snow on the wind – her element calling out to her. With her eyes closed, Katara felt the tension drain out of her body, her mind sweeping away with the howling wind driving the soft wet snow. Her fingertips began to swirl against Zuko's back in nonsensical patterns in time with the snow on the wind. The desire and tension that she'd woken to drained away in favour of the familiarity and simplicity of her element moving with the wind.

Katara's mind drifted with it, carrying her back to the long years she'd spent at the South Pole with the Southern Water Tribe. Days spent chasing after Gran-Gran and wrangling the younger kids she'd been charged with caring for. Mornings spent racing Sokka to the canoes to go fishing or seal hunting. Afternoons spent feeling the stirrings of her bending ability coming to life. Late evenings beneath the full moon when she'd snuck out of their igloo to stare up at the pale orb and feel the power flow through her limbs.

Lost in her thoughts and carried on the wind with her element, Katara drifted away.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Zuko's breath hitched when he realised she wasn't really there anymore. Oh, she was solid and warm inside his arms, wrapped in his embrace and curled against him in his sleeping bag. But Katara wasn't there anymore. Her essence swept against his own like raindrops down a window, but the familiar and strangely intoxicating feel of it being completely enveloped inside his own – as it had been all night – suddenly receded.

The wind howled outside their tiny, secluded room and Zuko shivered when he felt another sensation instead. Unlike the curled feel of her chi wrapped insider his, brushing lightly against his as though from within its embrace, Zuko suddenly felt instead the water bender's chi outside of his own, flowing over and around his, like water being sloshed about inside a bowl, only with much more precision. It felt cool, but not cold. Much like the way her fingers caressed his back in nonsensical patterns, her chi flowed against his, brushing and swirling.

He'd never felt anything like it before in his life and he didn't know what to make of it. It was as though she was there, her chi and her body against his, but her mind was elsewhere. It was dancing on the wind and shimmying amid the snow. Zuko realised with a start that despite the cold, this was her element. She might be a water bender, but Katara had been born and raised in a world of driving cold and swirling snow. She would be as at home in the blizzard that raged outside as he was on hot summer days in the palace gardens.

Closing his eyes, Zuko let the patterns of her fingers against his back and the feel of her chi moving against his carry him back to sleep. When he dreamed, the dreams were not his own. Zuko knew that immediately as he found himself inside the strangely bright world of dream. He knew, because it was a world filled with snow and laughter. A world where a boy he didn't know but vaguely recognised ran about with a funny little ponytail and shaved sides of his head.

Where an elderly woman with kind eyes instructed him on ways of the world and brushed her hand lovingly over his hair. Dimly, Zuko was aware that these must be Katara's dreams or memories but he felt no pressing urge to pull away from them. Truthfully, he didn't know if he could. He'd never experienced anything like it before in all his life and he would need to ask his uncle about the notion of one's chi rushing out to brush against another's and sharing dreams like this. He was sure it must be some Spirit World effect.

Lost in a world of snow and ice amid faces he didn't know but strangely felt connected to, Zuko let her dreams carry him through his slumber and for the first time in a long time Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation didn't suffer the same nightmare of his father burning his face and disgracing his amid an Agni Kai before stripping him of his title and his honour and banishing him.


	4. Chapter 4

When he next awoke, Zuko knew something was wrong. He shivered slightly, blinking his eyes open to find he was sprawled on his stomach inside his sleeping bag. He was alone in it, cold with the loss of Katara's body heat against his. Lifting his head and feeling groggy, he tried to make sense of his surroundings. It was dark, making him think he'd somehow slept all the way through the day and well into the following night.

Waving his hand to bend his fire, Zuko lit the small lamp he always carried and his frown deepened when he discovered that Katara was gone. Her things were still scattered about the room, namely her sleeping bag, but she was nowhere in sight. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, he noted that the door to the room where they'd been staying was open. Getting to his feet, Zuko shivered at the chill in the air outside his warm sleeping bag, pausing long enough to pull his discarded cloak and travelling clothes on before he went in search of the Water Bender.

Carrying the lantern with him, Zuko stalked silently through the house they'd been inhabiting. He followed his ears toward the sound of running water to the end of the hall on the lower level. Zuko stopped in the doorway when he found a second lit lantern inside the room. He could hear the sound of chattering teeth and with a start Zuko realised that it was a washroom.

And Katara was in the process of bathing.

The Water Bender was clearly using her bending to make the shower run despite the frozen pipes thanks to the blizzard. His eyes skidded to a halt when he spotted the sight of her clothing in a basin where they were swirling back and forth, seemingly of their own accord. He raised his eyebrows when he realised she was also bending in order to wash her clothing. All of it. Zuko felt a minute tremor run through his body when he spotted the sight of her binding sarashi wraps amid the other garments.

Meaning she was completely naked as she chattered her teeth all the through her shower. Zuko gulped audibly.

Was she mad? Who decided to do laundry and take a bath during a blizzard? The answer, apparently, was water bending fugitives. Then again, Zuko supposed she could bend the water right out of her clothing so they would be dry again once they were clean.

"Stupid cold!" He heard her mutter from inside the shower behind the screen. He couldn't see her through it. The idea that she was naked on the other side of those flimsy screens made him feel strange inside and the same sensation he'd woken to that morning when he'd  _risen with the sun_ , so to speak, twitched through him at the very idea. Having spent a good deal of time sleeping with her in his arms, he had a very real concept of the curvy, tautly muscled figure Katara sported under all her clothing. And despite his aversion to Water Benders and to being touched, Zuko was still very much a hot-blooded male.

Setting his lantern down on the bench, Zuko found himself silently traversing the floor of the washroom until he was standing beside the screen. The urge to rip it away and demand to know what she was doing was strong. Zuko denied it. Barely. Instead he found himself reaching for the pipe the water was gushing out of, wrapping his hand around it tightly before directing heat into the appendage and warming both the pipe and the water that rushed through it.

"Oh," Katara sighed for just a moment inside the shower before she gasped. "Zuko?"

Zuko rolled his eyes to himself. How many other Fire Benders did she know who wouldn't immediately be trying to force themselves on her or trying to capture her for being a Water Bender?

"You and I need to have a discussion about boundaries, Prince Zuko," Katara said sternly.

"I can leave and you can have the freezing cold water back, if you'd prefer?" Zuko sneered from beyond the curtain.

"Why are you in the washroom with me? And why are you being nice to me?" she asked suspiciously, refusing to rise to the bait.

"Maybe you're not the only one interested in bathing and having clean clothes," he informed her.

"Oh," she huffed. Zuko smirked to himself. "Right. Of course. Well, I'll be done in a minute."

Zuko didn't respond as he channelled heat into the pipes and waited for her to finish. The tension between the two of them from the previous day returned tenfold as she finished bathing and Zuko was surprised by the scent of fresh jasmine and papaya, realising with a jolt that she must have some kind of soap or something behind the screen.

"You can stop heating the pipe now," she said quietly. Zuko listened the sound of her bending all the water off her body as it ceased rushing from the pipe.

"I take it you won't need this?" he asked, dangling a towel he found on the washroom shelf over the screen towards her.

"I do actually," she replied, taking it from him. "But not to get dry."

Zuko blinked at her in surprise, leaning against the basin as she came around the shower screen wrapped in the towel. Her tanned skin was flushed pink from the warmth of the shower. She eyed him carefully, as though she feared he might lunge at her and Zuko rolled his eyes in response.

"You can get in, if you want." She waved her hand at the screen and the shower beyond it. "Throw your things over and I'll bend some more water to wash them for you."

Zuko eyed her a minute longer before taking her suggestion. She baffled him completely. He also needed to do something about the problem he was having at seeing so much of her skin on display. The towel was short, barely covering her middle and all her feminine parts. The last thing he needed was more mortifying discussion about his inability to completely control his entire body. Something he was lamenting furiously as he rounded the shower screen and began to strip. The idea that she was just beyond the screen unsettled him a bit but he disrobed just the same.

"Let me know when you want water," she said over the sound of wet clothing being lifted from the basin. Zuko peeked around the screen just the tiniest bit at the sound of her bending the water free of her clothing, watching with some fascination as she pulled the water from the fabric with ease, leaving it dry and much cleaner than he suspected it had been in some time. Not that he blamed her. Who knew how long it had been since he'd had cleanly laundered clothing or bathed properly?

He very rarely had the opportunity to bathe in peace given that he was a wanted fugitive and he certainly didn't have time or the inclination to do laundry. When the things he wore grew too soiled, he usually just stole something else and discarded the dirty garments. He bit his lip and tossed his things over the screen, still peeking around it slightly and watching her.

"Ok," he said quietly, waiting for her to begin bending the water. He moved slightly so she wouldn't see him peeking when she glanced in his direction and made a pulling motion with her arm. Zuko wrapped his own hand around the pipe to heat the water as he heard it bubbling through the pipers before it spilled down his back.

He tipped his head back into the spray, sighing at the feel of the hot water sliding over his skin and suppressing a groan at how good it felt to bathe properly for once. Tilting his head towards the wall and enjoying the water, Zuko peeked around the curtain again, his free hand fisting his current problem – which was growing steadily at the sight of Katara. She had dropped the towel she wore and was in the process of re-binding her chest. Zuko moved his thigh to hide the jutting evidence of his arousal over the sight she made, being sure that if she did glance in his direction and spot a glimpse of him behind the screen she wouldn't see  _all_  of him.

"Hey!" he protested when the water stopped suddenly a few minutes later.

"Do you want clean clothes or not?" she asked. She sounded amused. Zuko looked up to see the water was being channelled over the screen and into the basin where she'd washed her things, having disposed of the dirty water from her own clothing. He felt very much at a disadvantage when he noticed that she was now fully clothed while he was still naked.

Zuko waited impatiently, trying not to shiver at the feel of his wet skin in the chilled room without the hot water rushing over him. He sighed when she directed it back at him and Zuko went about trying to wash himself as best he could with only one hand. The other was controlling the water temperature and he wasn't about to risk the feel of freezing water on his skin for the sake of proper scrubbing.

Using the soap he found inside the shower – that she'd clearly used as well - Zuko scrubbed at his skin and then his hair, which had grown long enough to hang into his eyes in a wild tangle as a way of better hiding his scar and his identity from the Fire Nation. When he was clean – feeling shiny and new again – Zuko let the water rush over him for a few minutes more, leaning his forehead and the balled fist of his free hand against the wall of the shower.

He really needed to do something about his  _problem_ , but he didn't know how with her in the room. Oh, he could be quiet, but the idea that he had this problem at all was outright embarrassing. He was a grown man, for crying out loud. One curvy little water bender should not be able to rob him of his self-control. What right did she have to look and feel that intriguing, anyway?

Sighing heavily again, Zuko listened to the sounds of her swishing the water through his clothing vigorously. She'd begun to hum softly, as though she were off in her own mind as she went about the task as though she was used to it. Living with her brother and the Avatar on the run from the Fire Nation – Zuko supposed she  _was_  used to it. He didn't imagine either of those idiots were any better about laundry than he was.

The notion that she mothered them made him snort with amusement.

He regretted the very thought when it followed with notions of her actually being a mother. Especially when his body twitched and throbbed painfully at the very idea. This was getting out of hand. He was going to have to do something. He couldn't stand to be in her presence and her company for however long she was likely to follow him around without either screwing her – which he had no doubt they would  _both_  morally oppose – or finding another way to deal with his problem.

Being quick about it, Zuko turned slightly so his back was to her if she peeked around the screen and smoothed his hand over his swollen flesh. Used to the requirement of hurrying through such a thing when it was for the simple purpose of relieving pent up tension or frustration, he was as quick as he could be.

He felt dirty afterward, especially considering that he'd found the humming water bender featuring in the imaginings that had pushed him over the edge. This would never do. She was a Water Bender and he was a Fire Bender. She was his prey and he, her pursuer. They might temporarily be travelling companions but soon enough they would locate his uncle and the Avatar and then they would part ways once more. Zuko resigned himself to the fact that until then, they were going to have to get along as well as enemies could.

He made sure to squash the thought that popped into his mind of just how well enemies might be able to get along, if given the chance.

"You can make the water stop now," he said, a bite of annoyance in his voice as he found himself angry over what he'd done. Over what she'd caused.

The water cut off and Zuko straightened. He hissed in surprise when she pulled the water from his body and his hair, leaving him cold but dry behind the curtain. He narrowed his eyes when her hand, clutching a clean towel, appeared around the edge of the screen before he snatched the cloth from her. Despite already being dry, Zuko found himself scrubbing the towel furiously over his skin for a minute before wrapping it tightly around his waist and stalking around the shower screen.

Katara glanced up at him in surprise from where she was still agitating his clothing in the basin, swirling the water wildly. Zuko crossed his arms over his chest, too angry to really care that she was eyeing his naked chest strangely.

"Um… Zuko?" she said quietly. He raised his only eyebrow at her questioningly. The other didn't grow anymore – not since his father had burned his face.

"Could you turn around for a second?" she asked and Zuko frowned.

"What for?"

"Just do it, would you?" she asked. Zuko narrowed his eyes at her further, sensing she had some reason for it but wasn't going to share it with him until he complied. He didn't much like that, but he did it nonetheless. Turning until his back was to her, he watched her over his shoulder.

"Oh," she murmured. Zuko realised she must be staring at the burns and scars crisscrossing his back from the fire bending training and battles he'd had in his younger years. "They're gone."

"What?" he asked. He flinched when he felt her cool fingers smoothing over his back.

"The scars I could feel here… they're gone."

"What do you mean, they're gone?" he asked.

"See for yourself." She nodded at the mirror over the basin where his clothes were washing.

Zuko angled his shoulders to look at his back – not having done so in years - and he was surprised to see that she was right. The previously scar-riddled flesh was smooth and unblemished.

"How?" he asked, eyeing the skin with some annoyance. He'd  _earned_  some of those scars, damn it!

"I think maybe I got a bit carried away this morning," she admitted. "I was trying to bend the snow outside, but I was touching your skin… Water benders can heal…."

Zuko eyed her in confusion for a moment as her words sunk in.

"You healed my scars?"

"Only the ones on your back," she told him softly. Zuko flinched, jerking back when she reached up as though to brush her fingers over the scar on his face.

"Don't touch me!" he hissed. His eyes sparkled with fury.

How  _dare_  she think she could just reach up and touch the scar on his face as though it weren't the most sensitive and horrifying part of him?

"Sorry," she whispered. She lowered her hand, moving back once more and returning her attention to his clothing in the sink where she washed them. Zuko continued to glare at her in annoyance before turning his own attention back to the mirror and to the fact that all the scars on his back where she'd swirled her fingers were gone.

She didn't say anything else to him as she pulled the water from him clothing and disposed of it. She handed the garments back to him in silence and Zuko watched as she left the washroom quickly, pulling the door closed behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

Katara paced the length of the room she and Zuko had used for sleeping the previous evening. She felt full of energy after so long spent resting – after finally catching up on the hours of sleep she'd been missing whilst waking at every noise when she'd travelled alone. She needed to do  _something_ , but it was just so cold that she didn't dare leave the room. Were she still at the South Pole, with her tribe, she'd be used to the cold and would go about her day as though it were any other. Blizzards were commonplace and so she was used to enduring them.

But she hadn't been home in more than a year now, and she wasn't dressed for blizzard conditions, even in the garments she'd stolen after being separated from Aang and Sokka. She missed them, she realised. In this type of weather both boys would've been making their own fun and likely would've started a snowball fight or something similar. She'd have happily joined in, using her bending to wicked effect. But she didn't think that Zuko would appreciate the art of a good snowball fight.

He was a surly, moody, annoying sod of a person. Katara was torn between the urge to smack him to tell him to stop being such a snipe and the urge to simply leave him be, lest his foul temper land her in the flames. Literally. She didn't doubt that he would not take kindly to being bossed about by anyone, let alone by her. Pacing back and forth across the room, Katara tossed up the idea of having a snack, but she wasn't really hungry.

She needed to do something. It was too cold to even think about leaving the safe-haven the house provided. Beyond the walls of the small building, the blizzard winds howled. She could hear the sounds of anything not tied down being tossed about wildly upon the wind. She imagined, in a storm like this, that even many things that were tied down would likely be tested at their moorings.

She was still pacing restlessly when Zuko returned, fully dressed, to the room they'd shared while they slept. He looked no less angry than he'd done when she'd left him in the bathroom and Katara suspected he was annoyed that she'd healed the scars on his back. She wondered how long it might take before he would consider asking her to heal the one on his face, too.

Katara wondered if she'd even be  _able_  to heal it. It wasn't exactly a normal scar. It had been given to him during an Agni Kai and from the angry way it still stood so starkly red despite the number of years since he'd been given it, she knew the damage to the area must go deep into the dermal layers of his flesh.

She watched, still pacing, as he moved over to his bag and fished out a strip of the same jerky he'd been eating last night before sitting down and chewing it slowly. He didn't appear to pay her any notice, but as she paced Katara got the distinct feeling that he was watching her. It itched between her shoulder blades just the same way it did whenever she'd been hunting seal at the South Pole and a pod of whales were nearby.

She wasn't hungry enough to join him in his meal and her restlessness seemed to grow as the sound of the blizzard raging outside grew louder. The wind was howling out there now, buffeting the house and making the wood and the earthen walls of it groan under the strain.

"You should eat," Zuko spoke quietly. "You're going to need your strength."

Katara stopped, turning slowly toward him for the ominous tone in his voice.

"Oh?" she asked. "It's not like we can leave the house in this weather. Even if we could – and I  _could_  bend the snow away from us to travel if we  _had_  to – there would be little point. Aang and Sokka won't be travelling in conditions like this. Neither will your Uncle."

"I have no intention of leaving." Zuko said, tilting his head slightly so that he met her gaze out the eye that bore the scar.

"Then what do I need my strength for?" Katara demanded.

His smile was cold and cruel as he slowly rose back to his full height and stalked on silent feet across the distance between the two of them. Katara flinched when he suddenly pulled a pair of daggers and lunged at her. Reacting on pure instinct, Katara leapt backward out of the way. Zuko followed her.

"Don't bend at me," he warned. "If I'm going to let you tag along with me until we find my Uncle, you're going to need to prove that you can fight without giving either of us away as Benders."

Katara dodged him when he tried to slash at her again. She got the feeling he wasn't like Sokka or Aang, who would purposely avoid hitting her with the sharp edge blade should they land a blow. Zuko would cut her if he got the chance.

"I don't have a blade," Katara protested. "If I can't bend, it's hardly a fair fight."

"Then you better find a way to defend yourself, hadn't you?" Zuko sneered.

Katara narrowed her eyes on him, dodging another lunge from him and countering it with a high kick to his exposed ribs. He grunted at the impact and Katara squealed in pain when his free hand brought a dagger up and slashed at the back of her right thigh, cutting through the thick fabric on her clothing but not quite managing to penetrate all the layers to reach the flesh beneath.

"Stop, Zuko!" Katara commanded sternly. She withdrew across the far side of the room and held her hands up in surrender. "I don't know how to fight hand-to-hand. I can use a knife to skin and butcher meat, but I don't know how to fight with one. I don't even carry one because Sokka always handled whatever needing cutting if I couldn't use my bending to do it."

She spoke quickly, blurting the words out as Zuko backed her into the wall of the room until she was pressed up against it.

"Then what use are you as a travelling companion?" he demanded when he was a hairsbreadth from her face, his nose almost brushing hers. One blade pressed against her throat in warning while the other dug into her stomach, poking a hole in her clothes and threatening to disembowel her.

"I'm a water bender," she reminded him. "And it's snowing. You think that I'll really be of no use whatsoever?"

"I think you'll slow me down," Zuko replied.

"Well, I won't. Travelling is actually much easier when you do it with someone who can bend the snow from the roads," she said. Her breath came in short gasps as she held his golden-eyed gaze, fearing he might murder her just for spite.

"Maybe it is," he conceded the point after a moment of thought. "But you're too easy to recognise as a Water Bender. Maybe you didn't notice, Katara, but you and I are both wanted by the Fire Nation."

"So?" Katara asked. "I'm only wanted for being the travelling companion of the Avatar. Unlike you,  _Prince_  Zuko. Or should I call you The Blue Spirit?"

The tip of his dagger pierced the delicate flesh at her neck and Katara whimpered at the sting.

"What do you know about that?" he asked in a low, dangerous tone that suggested he would literally kill her for lying.

"I know you're the Blue Spirit." Katara shrugged her shoulders. "And I know you've been working against the Fire Nation, often, during your travels through the Earth Kingdom. I've known for more than a week. I'm not exactly going to rat you out, Zuko."

Zuko narrowed his eyes on her hatefully.

"Which brings us back to you holding me at knife-point," Katara said, filling the silence when he didn't speak or move. "I don't know how to fight with knives and I  _know_  that you're a weapons master with swords, so this is hardly a fair fight. Especially since I'm unarmed. If you're so worried about the idea of me being a liability because I don't know how to fight without Water Bending, then teach me, genius."

"And give you a skill that you'll turn against me the minute we find your friends?" Zuko scoffed, suddenly drawing back from her and sheathing his blades.

"Do you imagine that I'm as heartless as you, Zuko?" Katara demanded. She raised one eyebrow in silent challenge. "I'm not really the type of person who would turn on someone, even a prior enemy, once I've declared them useful to my cause."

Zuko glared at her.

"What do I get in exchange for teaching you to fight?" he asked. Katara could tell he was pondering the idea carefully, looking for some kind of trick. She wondered just how cruel the world had been to him and how rotten his childhood had been that he was so suspicious of everything.

"What do you want in exchange for it?" she asked rather than offering an answer. She couldn't actually think of anything she had that she would be willing to offer him. She could Water Bend and she was a decent cook, but that was really the extent of her skills – at least those that Zuko might consider useful.

He looked stumped by her question, his eyes travelling over her slowly. Katara squirmed under his intense gaze, suddenly recalling the image he'd made shirtless in the washroom and the feel of every masculine inch of him pressed so sinfully against her body in the bed-roll that morning. For a terrible moment, she wondered if he was going to suggest she repay the favour of him teaching her to fight by sharing her body with him. For an even more wretched second, she wondered what she would say if he did.

"I'll think about it," he replied. "Until then, if I teach you to fight, you owe me a debt, Water Bender."

"Are you going to keep calling me that?" Katara sighed. "I have a name, you know?"

"If I use it, you might get the false impression that you and I could one day be friends," he answered dismissively.

Katara rolled her eyes to herself as she watched him shrug out of his coat and toss it on his bed-roll. He followed by putting all of his knives down. She found herself alarmed by the fact that he'd somehow been carrying eight of them on his person.

"Take that off," he pointed at the coat he'd poked holes in.

"You put holes in it," she scowled at him.

"Shut up. Take it off and prepare to fight, Katara."

"You want to fight now?" she demanded.

Zuko actually looked up at her, his only eyebrow lifting in a way that made her think he doubted her intelligence.

"Did you have some other pass-time in mind until this blizzard lets up enough to move on?"

Narrowing her eyes on him, Katara pulled her coat off and tossed it with his things.

"We should do this downstairs," he decided. "There's more room and less chance of you stumbling over our belongings."

He stalked out the door and way down the steps to the lower portion of the house without another word. Katara followed him, muttering to herself about the sarcastic, biting tone he had so mastered. And about the idea that he thought her so clumsy and inept that she would trip over their stuff. She wondered if his sarcasm was something he'd picked up, or something bred into him just because he was royalty. Maybe being an arrogant, pompous jerk was genetic.

When she joined him on the lower level, he stood with his arms loose, his eyes fixed upon her and calculating every detail.

"I don't know how to fight," she warned him. "Not without bending."

"Put the water pouch down," he commanded, eyeing the canteen strapped to her hip like it were a live snake.

"That's hardly fair. You can still bend at me."

He smirked. He also didn't say anything else. He simply waited for her to obey. Katara pouted. She didn't like the idea of putting down her canteen. Even with all the snow outside the window readily available, she always felt naked with the canteen on her hip.

"I have the control  _not_  to bend when I lose my temper," he said finally when Katara had unfastened her only weapon and laid it on one of the steps. "You, on the other hand…"

He trailed off but his judgemental expression really said it all. Feeling her temper flare at the criticism, Katara narrowed her eyes on him before lunging right at him.

He was expecting it.

Katara squawked when he parried the blow she aimed for his head, catching her wrist and twisting her arm until she was trapped, her back to him and her arm jerked uncomfortably behind her. If he pulled it up too high, she was sure her shoulder would break.

"Hey!" Katara protested. She squirmed when his free hand lifted to collar her throat threateningly, the touch making the small cut he'd left with his dagger sting.

"You're very predictable," he warned. "You should work on that. And you should be grateful I didn't let you land the hit. You'd have broken your thumb."

"What? Why?" Katara asked twisting her head to meet his gaze over her shoulder.

His eyes narrowed for a minute before he released her arm and her throat. He waited for her to straighten her arms but stopped her when she tried to step away from him. Instead, he manipulated her body backward until she was pressed with her back to his front. Her breath caught in her throat despite having spent all of her sleep hours in almost this exact position with him. When he caught both of her wrists, he lifted her hands up in front of her face to eye-level.

He didn't seem to notice or care that he was pressed to intimately against her. Or if he did, he certainly didn't let on that it bothered him. Katara, on the other hand was becoming aware that with his clothes and his body freshly washed – even with the sweet smelling soap in the bathroom – his own personal scent was intoxicating. The heat of his body in the cold of the downstairs rooms – one of which sported a broken window – made her want to melt back against him and absorb his warmth rather than continuing to fight. She was beginning to think she might be losing her mind.

"Make a fist," he said.

Katara did as she was told, putting all other thoughts out of her mind and trying to focus on the lesson.

"That's why you would've broken your thumb.  _Never_  tuck you thumb inside your fingers when you make a fist." Zuko fished her thumb from inside each fist, tucking them outside her curled fingers.

Katara watched carefully as he gripped the back of her hand and guided it in a slow motion punch forward, pausing to straighten her wrist.

"Keep your wrist aligned and locked in place," he said, "Like this.

He released he hands and punched one fist against the open palm of his other hand. It made a smacking sound. Katara mimicked him, frowning when her wrist seemed to twist sideways slightly on impact, making the joint twinge.

"I told you to lock it in place," he said. "If you do it like that when you punch something solid, you'll snap your wrist. Hand-to hand fighting isn't like your limp-wristed water bending."

"I always fight this way," Katara protested. She stepped away from him until her back no longer pressed to his chest and peered up at him.

"You mean when you bend?" he frowned. "That's the problem. When you bend, it's about being fluid and smooth, like your element. You need to bend like a Fire Bender would. Or an Earth Bender. You have to be sure and concise in your movement. Watch."

He demonstrated the way he did his bending. Shooting fireballs from each fist, he rapidly punched the air in front of himself, his fists clenched, his wrists locked. His arms fully extended every time he made the motion before darting back to his side, ready to protect his core or to punch again.

Each fireball hissed and sizzled as it landed in the snow that had piled up through a hole in the window where he'd mentioned a sign had blown through it during the night.

Katara mimicked the movement carefully, slowing it down until she was sure she'd mastered the art. Zuko nodded almost imperceptibly, watching her like a hawk. Katara smiled, realising that was the extent of the praise she was likely to get from the surly prince.

The entire evening was spent that way. First he showed her each move he wanted her to learn, and when he thought she had it, he moved on to the next one. Katara was panting and sweating by the time he told her that it was time they put what she'd learned into practice. Despite the cold, the exertion had seen him strip down to only his sleeveless tunic and pants. Katara herself had stripped to her sarashi wraps.

She squared off against Zuko, looking for a weakness she could exploit. She knew she would lose this fight, even if it was only a training match. He was far bigger, far stronger and far more experienced at fighting hand-to-hand. That, and he was ruthless. Narrowing her eyes on him, Katara wondered if she couldn't use her smaller stature to her advantage. He lunged at her without warning and Katara parried the blow, immediately shifting into the fluid movement of her water bending forms.

She might not be able to defeat him with brute strength, but if she could avoid enough of his blows, eventually he would tire. He smirked wickedly at her when she evaded several hits in a row before attempting to return fire. She landed on punch on his arm, quite hard. Katara hissed and danced back from him immediately, her wrist throbbing.

"Told you to keep it locked," he sneered before lunging at her again.

Katara grunted when he knocked the wind out of her with a kick to the stomach. She cuffed him around the head and he bared his teeth at her in annoyance for the blow before tripping her and following her to the floor. They scuffled for several minutes, each trying to get the upper hand.

As she'd known would happen, she ended up on the bottom, his fist poised to pummel her while he pinned her by the throat.

"To be fair, you've been doing this for years," she told him when he paused, waiting to see if she was going to keep fighting.

"So have most of the people you'll have to fight," he replied with a condescending sneer. He was barely even panting and Katara had a stitch in her side.

"Want to have a Bending battle?" she asked when he lowered his fist to the floor and released her throat. He still loomed over her, his lower half pinning her legs to the floor while he held his upper body off her.

"As though that won't get noticed?" he asked.

"Do you really think the soldiers will be wandering about in this weather?" Katara asked sceptically as the icy wind kissed across her bare arms and midriff.

Zuko glanced toward the broken window. It had grown dark once more, the storm raging on.

"We'll never find Uncle in this," he muttered. Fire seemed to dance in his eyes when he looked back at her.

"Fine. Bending match. But no hard feelings when I best you. Again," he smirked before levering himself off of her.

Katara scrambled to her feet and dodged the fireball he shot in her direction. It hit the wall and Katara winced.

"Maybe no bending," Zuko said, also cringing as he pulled the fire back from the wall, leaving a large scorch mark behind.

"Not inside, anyway," Katara sighed. Even as she said so, she used her bending to lob a snowball right at Zuko's face. The wet smack of the missile connecting with his cheek made her giggle.

"We just agreed…" Zuko began before Katara lobbed another snowball at him. He narrowed his eyes on her.

"Don't get angry. You're as capable of throwing them as I am," she insisted, putting aside her bending to build a snowball with her own hands before hurling it at him.

Zuko did not look impressed.

"I'm supposed to believe you'd fight fair, even if you didn't use bending to hurl the snowballs?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Are you saying you don't think I'd fight fair, Zuko? Or are you just scared that you'll lose, even if I do?"

" _I_  wouldn't fight fair," he muttered before diving through the hole in the window and gathering up some snow of his own. Katara followed him, shivering at the temperature difference outside the house and in the middle of the storm.

Zuko threw a snowball at her but the wind carried it away before it could hit her. When she tried throwing one back, the same thing happened. Narrowing her eyes, Katara settled for good old fashioned wrestling. She raced across the small patch of snow separating the two of them and tackled him, surprising Zuko, who was squinting against the driving wind and snow as he tried to make another snowball.

He yowled in surprised when she knocked him off his feet and into the snow. Katara smirked as she pinned him to the ground, feeling smug to have managed to knock him off his feet. He flipped her easily and Katara shrieked at the feel of the ice and snow against her bare skin.

"What's wrong, Water Bender? Can't take the cold?" he challenged from above her.

Katara struggled beneath him, shoving him off of her and laughing when he landed next to her in the snow once more. He cursed foully at the temperature and at the idea that she'd managed to throw him off. She squawked in surprise when he lunged at her again. Katara got the feeling that Zuko wasn't used to games.

He didn't seem to know how to play-fight. He was only used to sparring or fighting for real with the intention of winning by defeating his opponent. She was thinking she was going to have to change his attitude toward fun. Zuko make a noise of protest when she rolled them both with his momentum until he was pinned on his back. She straddled his thighs and pinned his wrists by his head.

"Now who doesn't like the snow?" she laughed before scooping up a handful of it and smushing it in his face.

It was a mistake. Zuko bucked violently beneath her, obviously not liking to have his face touched. Katara suddenly found herself on her back in the snow once more, both of his hands wrapped around her neck and attempting to squeeze the life out of her.

Her eyes widened at the hatred glittering in his face.

"Zuko!" she wheezed, clawing at his hands and trying to fight him off. He squeezed tighter still and Katara panicked. Summoning her bending, she gathered the snow and used it to hurl him off of her.

He landed a few feet away in the snow and Katara panted heavily as she was granted oxygen once more. She sat up slowly. Part of her wanted to be angry with him for what he'd done, but it occurred to her that having anyone touch his face or throw anything at it was probably a trigger of some kind. The last time anyone had done so, his face had been badly burned.

He was cursing foully to himself, fire racing across his flesh in his rage as he burst free of the snow she'd encased him in. Katara watched him glare at her for a moment, obviously livid to the point of speechlessness. He turned his back on her and walked a few paces away when Katara tried to convey her contrition.

"I'm sorry, Zuko," she blurted, the wind snatching her words before they could reach him. "I didn't realise you would react like that. I was just trying to have fun with you."

He didn't react to her words. Katara doubted he even heard her speak them and she pulled herself to her feet. She was beginning to shiver now, the cold of being wet, only wearing her sarashi wraps and being out in such a terrible blizzard rapidly lowering her body temperature. They both needed to get inside, but she doubted he was going to cooperate on that. The stubborn fool would likely stand out here until he froze to death.

Her teeth were already beginning to chatter as she did the only thing she could think of to mend the damage she'd caused. She acted the way she would have had it been Aang or Sokka who was angry at her; closing the distance between herself and Zuko before encircling his waist with her arms and pressing herself against his back.

"Get. Off. Me!" he growled, stiffening immediately.

"I'm sorry," Katara apologised. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to upset you."

Rather than having the effect of an apology the way it would work on Sokka or Aang, Zuko stiffened even further. Even with her mind warning her away, Katara squeezed him tighter, cuddling him even closer. She pressed her cold body against his and she almost sighed with relief when she felt his chi brush along the length of hers.

He didn't seem like he was going to move, even though she could feel that he'd begun to shiver as well. Sighing against the back of his shirt, Katara flicked her wrist to erect a wall of ice around them, cutting off the wind.

"Get off me, Water Bender," Zuko said quietly.

"No. You're being stubborn. I didn't think, alright? I'm sorry for upsetting you. I forgot that you might not deal well with having anyone force a foreign object against your face. I'm sorry," Katara felt like she was beginning to babble. "And I now you're angry and that an apology probably won't cut it with you, but we need to get back inside before we both freeze to death. We're not exactly dressed for a snowball fight in a blizzard."

"How am I supposed to do that with you clinging to me?" he demanded.

Katara rolled her eyes, unwinding her arms from around his lean waist and tugging on his arm to drag him toward the house. He shook his arm immediately, trying to dislodge her hold, but Katara just latched on tighter. When he wrenched violently on the appendage to try and get free of her, Katara suddenly found herself very much inside his personal space once more, her chest colliding with his.

He glared down into her face when she glanced up at him guiltily.

"Are you always this clingy?" he asked coolly.

"Don't be a jerk," Katara rolled her eyes.

"Don't touch me," he replied.

She shook her head, refusing to release him even as she made for the house once more. Indeed, she didn't let go of him until she was sure he was inside the house and not likely to freeze to death in the snow. As soon as they were both inside, Katara used her bending to pull the water from their clothing and their skin before she reached for the clothing she'd been discarding since they began sparring, pulling it all back on hurriedly until she was fully dressed once more.

Zuko did the same thing, following her up the stairs and away from the cold draught blowing through the hole in the window. Katara could feel his anger radiating off him from across the room when she sat down on her bed-roll and wrapped the fabric around herself, trying to warm up. She reached for her snack,s watching Zuko pace for a few minutes before he followed suit.

He sat on his bed-roll, fished out his tea-pot and the two cups before silently handing her the tea-pot. Katara smiled to herself. It seemed they were going to develop a ritual, no matter how angry he might currently be with her or how tense things felt between the two of them in general.

She filled the pot and returned it, watching him boil it while she began gnawing on the fruit and nuts she kept on hand. She offered him some of them when he passed her a steaming cup of tea and a strip of jerky. He accepted, as he'd done the previous evening.

"Are you going to talk to me for the rest of the evening, or are you still upset with me?" Katara asked when their meal was mostly finished.

Zuko glared at her.

"Only, it would make sense to discuss travel plans. It seems clear to me that Sokka and Aang aren't here, and neither is Iroh. There is also the fact that those soldiers might recognise us after that stunt yesterday. We need to move on."

Zuko curled his lip at her.

"We need supplies," he argued, eyeing the meagre pile that remained of their food supplies when Katara pulled hers out and he did the same.

"We aren't going to be able to buy them without being noticed in this village," she said seriously, frowning slightly. "If any of those soldiers from yesterday spot us, they'll probably try to arrest us. And any of them getting close enough to you to see your scar will recognise you, what with the wanted posters for you and Iroh up all over the place.

Zuko nodded.

"Steal supplies, it is, then," he muttered. "As soon as the storm dies off enough to leave the house, we'll have to steal more."

Katara nodded in agreement. She nibbled her bottom lip as she finished her meal before summoning her bending power to rinse the cup she'd used. She rinsed Zuko's too when she noticed it was empty and watch him fuss around pulling off a few layers before he climbed into his bed-roll.

He looked over at her as she started to do the same thing.

"Are you going to shiver all night again?" he asked seriously.

Katara paused, looking over at him. The truth was that as awkward as sharing a sleeping roll with him was, it beat shivering in her sleeping bag by herself.

"I didn't think you…" she trailed off, not wanting to anger him again by suggesting that she didn't think he'd care if she suffered while he was annoyed with her.

Zuko glared at her just the same before sighing as though she were the most annoying thing he'd ever encountered. He peeled open his sleeping bag enough to make room for her and stared at her expectantly. Katara almost giggled as she crawled hesitantly across the space until she slotted herself in next to him. Using her sleeping bag as an extra blanket, she arranged it over the two of them carefully.

She tried not to let herself melt against the warmth he always seemed to radiate, but her toes were still numb from being outside and Katara found herself burrowing into him. The feel of his chi enveloping hers was a welcome one as he doused the light, plunging them both into darkness.

She didn't know how long they both laid there, tense and stiff against one another without speaking. She suspected he was still angry with her and she was uncomfortably aware of all the places their bodies touched under the blankets.

"Do you always go to bed this early?" she found herself asking when she couldn't get comfortable or turn her mind off long enough to think about sleep.

"No," he answered. Even that one word was clipped with anger.

"If your Uncle was here, what would the two of you do instead of going to bed after dinner?" Katara asked quietly. "Aang, Sokka and I take turns telling stories of the things we did. Aang's are all from before the war, while Sokka and I tell stories from what we did before we found him in the ice."

Zuko was quiet for so long, she wasn't sure he was going to answer.

"When we were on the ship with the crew," he began, "Uncle would arrange nights to keep them all entertained. Tea nights. Music nights. Story nights. Things to build moral and make friends, he called them. Most of the time he just wanted someone to drink with and a reason to play his Tsungi horn."

Katara smiled.

"You Uncle isn't like the rest of the Fire nation, is he?" she said softly, twisting slightly until she was facing him. She couldn't see him through the dark, but there was something about knowing he was right there that felt comforting. The very idea terrified her. Nothing about Zuko should make her feel comfortable. Yet the feel of his chi curled around hers and the feel of him, so warm and so close, made her feel better than she'd done since being separated from Sokka and Aang.

"No, he's not," Zuko said. "He… My uncle looks for the good in others; he finds the good in any situation and stays positive even when there is no call for it. He'd rather get to know someone than pick a fight with them. There were whispers, when I was young, before I was banished, that he used to be like my Grandfather and my father. A respected son of the Fire Nation in line for the throne. He was the only person to ever come close to taking Ba Sing Se from the outside."

"What changed?" Katara whispered.

"In the middle of the take-over he received word that my cousin – his son, Lu Ten - had been killed in battle," Zuko said. "I don't know the full story, I never dared to ask him. But he lost his will to fight, to conquer, even to live – for a while – after Lu Ten was killed."

"That's awful," Katara said, her heart squeezing inside her chest.

"All Uncle ever said to me about it was that he would never again be responsible for causing pain to anyone's mother or father by taking their child's life. That he could not bear the thought of inflicting such a thing on another when he knew, firsthand, how much it hurt to lose his son."

Katara felt her eyes fill.

"Were you close to him?" she asked. "Your cousin."

Zuko shrugged.

"When we were young, I suppose. He was several years older than me. By the time I was of any use to play with, he was old enough to be heading off to war. Whenever he was home, he made time for me. He was the one who taught me how to punch, actually." His voice seemed devoid of any emotion, but pressed so close to him, she could feel the slight tremble that went through him.

Thinking that was all she was likely to get out of him for the evening, given than he didn't trust her or like her, Katara changed the subject.

"When we get bored while we're flying, Sokka, Aang and I play a game. It's called, "If there wasn't a War, I would…" Do you want to play?" she asked him brightly, "I'll go first, if you want? If there wasn't a war, I would want to try riding the cargo carts at Omashu again. Without being afraid of capture or being concerned about what would happen if we were caught."

"You what?" Zuko asked, sounding startled.

"Oh. In Omashu, the Earth Benders move their cargo around the city by using their bending. They have these stone carts that slide and use gravity to push and pull everything to where it needs to go through a collection of tubes and shoots. Aang told me that when he was a boy and he went there, he and King Boomi – before he was King – used to ride in the carts. He said it was terrifying, but really fun unless the cart loses control and goes off the track."

"And if it does go off the track?" Zuko asked.

"I don't know, try and use bending to correct it and hope I wouldn't die," Katara shrugged. "We tried it when we went there the first time but it went badly because it was the middle of the morning when all the deliveries were being made. Sokka was nearly impaled on some spears and Aang used air bending to haul us out of that shoot and into another one."

"And you want to do it again? You're crazy," Zuko said.

Katara laughed.

"Well, what would you do then?" she challenged.

Zuko was silent.

"I don't know," he admitted finally. He twitched slightly in their shared sleeping bag, shifting his arm to rest it across her waist before tugging her closer to him. "If there wasn't a war, my Father would never have been Fire Lord. He'd never have invited me to a war meeting and I'd never have spoken out of turn."

"That's not how the game works," Katara told him when another tremble went through Zuko. She shifted her arm across his waist, burrowing her hand under the hem of his shirt and smoothing her fingers up his back without thinking. "If we were playing "What would it be like without the war", then you could say those things. If we were playing that, I'd say that my Mother would never have been killed by the fire Nation. I'd say that she wouldn't have had to die to protect the last Water Bender in the Southern Water Tribe. But we're playing "If there wasn't a war, I would…" that means you have to say something you'd do if there was no war. Something silly, like eating a different cuisine across the Four Nations."

"I've already done that," Zuko told her.

"Well, don't brag about it. What's something you'd like to do if there was no war and we could all travel wherever we liked without fear?" Katara laughed.

"I don't know. I always wanted to swim with the giant Elephant Koi at Kyoshi Island," Zuko admitted.

"Aang did that. He nearly got eaten by the unagi."

"Serves him right," Zuko muttered.

Katara smacked him lightly.

"If there wasn't a war, I would travel to the air temples. Aang told me the monks used to make the most delicious cakes in the four nations. I'd love to have tasted one."

"You really play this game with your friends?" Zuko asked sceptically. "How do you think of things you want to try?"

Katara blinked.

"I don't know. We just do. Sokka's tend to revolve around food. Aang tends to list things he already tried, or things he'd like to have tried before the Air Nomads were destroyed. I've been making a list, actually, of all the things the three of us want to do. One day, when the war is over, we'll do them all – the ones we  _can_  do, anyway."

"If there wasn't a war, I would probably be married by now," Zuko muttered. "Which makes me kind of glad there's a war."

Katara pulled back slightly.

"You're betrothed to someone?" she asked, frowning at him through the dark. She still couldn't see his face.

"I… was," Zuko nodded. "When I was banished, the betrothal was broken."

"Did you know the girl?" Katara asked nosily before realising how rude that was.

"I… yeah. Her name was Mai. The daughter of one of my father's governors. She used to play with my sister and another girl, Ty Lee, in the palace gardens when we were young."

"Is she your age?" Katara asked curiously. "What's she like?"

"She's seventeen now. She's… gloomy. She sighs a lot and very rarely finds joy or interest in anything at all."

"She sounds like a sociopath," Katara blurted before she could think better of it.

Zuko surprised her when he actually laughed, just a little.

"She was just raised very strictly. Be seen and not heard. Smile, but not too widely. Her father's political position often hinged on her ability to be prim, perfect and proper at all times because if she messed up, the betrothal contract would've been thrown out and her father would've been demoted," Zuko explained. "I don't know what your life was like, growing up with peasants, but in the Fire Nation, image and honour are very important. If Mai had ever put a toe out of line, she'd have been in trouble."

" _Did_  she ever put a toe out of line?" Katara wondered.

She couldn't see Zuko's smile, but she felt it when he managed to tug her body even closer to his.

"Only with me," he admitted.

"You… loved her?" she asked, her eyebrows rising. "Oh dear, she's not going to try and come after me for kissing her boyfriend, is she?"

Zuko actually laughed at her words, but it was a cold laugh.

"I doubt I'm capable of love, Water Bender. And if Mai loved me, she had a funny way of showing it. But we didn't have to be so proper when it was just the two of us. I was banished when I was thirteen, but she was technically my girlfriend by the time I left."

"So I kissed her boyfriend?" Katara asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach over the idea of betraying the girl's trust, even when she'd never met her.

"She's not my girlfriend anymore," Zuko said. "And what do  _you_  have to worry about? I kissed the  _Avatar's_ girlfriend. Mai's not even a bender. At most she could probably throw a few shurikens at you."

"What? Aang's not my boyfriend," Katara blurted, jerking back from him further to stare through the darkness. Her cheeks flamed pinked at the very idea.

"You left your tribe to follow him across the bloody world. He's your boyfriend."

"He's not. If that was the only requirement for it, Sokka would be his boyfriend too."

"Who said Sokka's not?" Zuko asked and Katara swatted him.

"First of all, my brother likes girls, so I doubt it. Secondly, Aang is twelve. Avatar or not, I'm not a cradle-snatcher."

"The other bloke you travel with is your brother?" Zuko confirmed.

"Yes."

"So, you don't have a boyfriend? Didn't leave anyone behind at the South Pole?"

"The only boys close to my age were Sokka and a bunch of kids younger than Aang," Katara told him.

"So no one is going to try and take my head off for yesterday?" Zuko asked.

"Jet would likely take issue with the idea, but he's not my boyfriend either, and he's a monster."

"Jet?" Zuko asked, a hard edge coming into his voice. "Let me guess. About my height, not a bender. Carries a pair of fighting hooks and always has a stick of grass hanging out of his mouth."

"You've met him?" Katara blinked in surprise.

"Ran into him when Uncle and I were travelling over the border into the Earth Kingdom chasing the Avatar," Zuko said. "We had to part ways when he realised that Uncle and I are fire benders."

"Yeah, Jet hates the Fire Nation and any Fire Bender is fair game in his opinion. He tried to get me, Sokka and Aang to help him and his Freedom Fighters to destroy an entire village of innocent people just because there were Fire Nation soldiers occupying it. They blasted a dam wall and flooded the village. Sokka barely got everyone out of there alive."

"Funny that you think he'd have a problem with you kissing someone," Zuko said. Katara could feel his curiosity about what her relationship to Jet had been.

"Yeah, well. Took me a while to realise he was a deranged monster bent on nothing but revenge and looking for it in all the wrong places," Katara muttered.

"Bet the Avatar loved that," Zuko laughed coldly.

"What? Why would Aang care what I did with Jet?" Katara frowned.

"What  _did_  you do with Jet?" Zuko asked nosily rather than answering her question.

"That's none of your business," Katara said.

"Well, if you hadn't been with a guy before him, based on the way you kissed me, I'd say you did a bit more than kissing him," Zuko needled. Katara's cheeks grew hot.

"I can feel you blushing, Water Bender," he laughed. Katara walloped him. "Ouch! Don't get violent with me just because you made the stupid mistake of spreading your legs for a nutcase."

"I…. Zuko!" Katara protested, her cheeks crimson.

"That's wasn't a denial," he said when Katara buried her head under the blankets. She pinched him. "Yeah, the Avatar was probably jealous as hell. He's in love with you, you know?"

"How would you know?" she asked, her voice muffled by the blankets.

"You mean other than that I stalked the three of you across the world?" he asked sarcastically. "I thought you were his girlfriend because every time I see him, he's making eyes at you."

"He's twelve!" Katara protested.

"He's male," Zuko said.

"Why are we even talking about this?" Katara demanded, walloping him again and pressing her cold feet to his legs in punishment. She didn't know what it was about the dark and the feel of their chi so intertwined, but the constraints of distance and daylight seemed to melt away.

With his hands under her shirt, it didn't matter that he was the enemy who'd chased her and her friends across the world. It didn't matter that he'd hunted them and made their lives hell. It didn't even matter that he was Fire Nation. Right then, it felt almost like being with a friend. Albeit a prickly, moody, angry friend who might set her on fire if she annoyed him, but a friend just the same.

"You asked me if I was dating anyone," he reminded her. "If I was betrothed, to be exact. I assume you're not? I thought that necklace you wear means you are?"

"How do you know about Northern Water Tribe customs?" she asked, stilling against him and tipping her chin up towards the direction his voice came from.

"I stalked you across the world," he deadpanned.

"You're weird."

"As though you aren't? Are you betrothed or not, Water Bender?" he demanded.

"What do you care?" Katara challenged.

"I want to know how much I'll be upsetting someone if we continue the charade of being a couple to make travelling and hiding easier," Zuko told her.

"What?" Katara rolled her eyes. "As though you care if someone would be upset about anything?"

"Of course I care," Zuko said. "If I can upset someone by kissing you, Water Bender, you better get used to being kissed."

"You're a horrible person."

"You're just realising this  _now_?"

Katara suspected she might be losing her mind when a bubble of laughter escaped her at his words. She hadn't actually believed Zuko capable of playing with anyone. She couldn't help but giggle at the very idea. It just seemed absurd. He was angry; driven; determined to reclaim his honour by capturing Aang. He was sullen and moody and  _always_  angry. She'd never imagined that under that constantly bubbling layer of fury and hatred for everything, he might have a sense of humour.

"I'm not promised to anyone. I might've been, if not for the war. The necklace I wear belonged to my grandmother. It was given to her by a water bender from the North Pole before she ran away."

"That's a shame," Zuko said. "I'd have enjoyed knowing I was antagonising someone every time I touch you."

"I hardly need a boyfriend for that to be a reality," Katara needled in return. "If Sokka spotted us right now, he'd probably murder you and lecture me for the rest of my life just for trusting you enough to share warmth."

"You're sharing more than warmth," Zuko muttered.

Katara narrowed her eyes on him.

"I can hardly be expected to trust you without sharing stories and secrets, Zuko," she said. She wasn't sure if he meant personal information or if he was referring to the way their chi brushed together. She didn't want to mention it, in case he couldn't feel it to.

In all honesty, she didn't want to mention it, even if he did feel it. It was strange and unheard of and alarmingly intimate. She didn't want to acknowledge such a thing with Prince Zuko.

"It's your turn," he told her after several long beats of silence where Katara's mind tried to wander toward recalling how it had felt to kiss him.

"My turn?" she asked.

"If there wasn't a war, you would…"he began the sentence for her.

Katara smiled. It seemed out of character that he wanted to continue playing. Indeed, it seemed strange that he wanted to talk to her at all. Maybe he'd been just as lonely without anyone to talk to and no friendly faces around him as she'd been without Sokka and Aang.

"I'd travel the coastlines of the entire Four Nations," Katara said. "I love my homeland, but sometimes it's nice to feel sand under my feet instead of needing to wear shoes to avoid losing my toes to the cold."

"Where would you start?" Zuko asked quietly.

"The Fire Nation," Katara answered immediately.

"Really?"

She nodded against his chest, burrowing into his warmth once more when a cold draught blew under the door to kiss her skin.

"Why?" Zuko wanted to know. Katara found her fingers tracing absent-minded patterns across his back.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I've just heard that it's beautiful. Is it true that the Fire Nation is taught that the war is a means for sharing your ways with the rest of the world?"

"Yes," Zuko whispered. "I didn't know until I was banished that the rest of the Nations hate us. All of us are taught that ours is the greatest and most advanced culture in the world and that we wage war to share our knowledge. We're taught that the other Nations are no better than savages. Your people are held up, most often, as the most primitive because of the way you live in your tiny villages in the South Pole."

"We didn't always," Katara said quietly. "Before the war… Before the Fire Nation captured all of the Water Benders from the Southern Water Tribe, we were once almost as prolific in our community as the Northern Water Tribes. But every year the war waged on, there were less Water Benders born to our tribe. Any who  _were_  born were captured or killed by the Fire Nation. I'm the last one. There hasn't been a Water Bender born to my tribe in sixteen years."

Zuko was silent after that, seeming to drink in the magnitude of her admittance. His arm over her hip tensed and relaxed several time, as though he were clenching and unclenching his fists. When he slid her body impossibly closer to his own in the narrow sleeping bag, Katara found herself once again moulded to every inch of him.

"Can I ask you something?" Zuko whispered when she'd almost drifted off after what felt like hours later.

"Hmmm?" she hummed softly. Her mind felt fuzzy with the warmth of his touch and the relative safety of his hold.

"Do you think, if the war ever ends, that your people – that all of the other Nations – would… Do you think there's any way forward? Any way to repair the damage? If all the fighting stopped and the occupation within the other Nations ended, do you think there would ever be a way that the other Nations would forgive the Fire Nation?"

Katara blinked slowly.

"The Air Nomads might have a little trouble," she murmured. "What with there only being one left."

Zuko seemed to deflate against her.

"No, then?"

"I don't know, Zuko. I know that there are lots of people who are angry at the Fire Nation for all they have done and all they continue to do. For my people to forgive yours, any prisoner The Fire Nation holds would have to be released and your people would have to go a long way to make amends for what they have done. The other nations would need the assurance that whoever took over as Fire Lord after your father was a person they could trust. Someone who would do everything in his power to ensure peace – possibly even executing Fire Nation soldiers who have committed terrible war crimes."

Zuko's chin brushed the top of Katara's head as he nodded thoughtfully. Katara nuzzled her nose into his chest until she could press the tip to his warm skin. She sighed contentedly when she felt him trailing his fingers through her loose long hair.

"Goodnight, Zuko," she whispered against his collarbone.

She would swear as he returned the bid that he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.


	6. Chapter 6

Zuko laid awake, his mind occupied with what Uncle Iroh would call the need to look inside himself. He wasn't sure he liked the notion, given what had sparked it, but he couldn't sleep for the thoughts pervading his mind. The slim Water Bender asleep in his arms was far more precious to her people than he'd believed. He'd go so far as to say that she was far more precious to the world. She was the last Water Bender of the Southern Water Tribe. She was the last hope her people had left, thanks to the horrors they had suffered at the hands of the Fire Nation.

The idea bothered him for one reason. She'd been nice to him. Of all the people currently residing on the planet, she was one of a small number who could claim a real bone to pick with Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. He had hunted her across the world. He had chased her. Harassed her. Attacked her repeatedly. He'd done terrible things in the name of hunting down the Avatar, and yet she'd been nice to him. She'd  _played_  with him.

And not in the sense that his sister 'played', or the way Ty Lee and Mai had played. No, Katara had played with him as though they were simply two kids from different nations who could be friends and do silly things. She'd thrown a snowball at him, for crying out loud. Nobody had ever done that. The only people who'd ever dared throw things at him were those he sparred with, his sister and his father. Everyone else was too fearful. And she hadn't thrown the snowball spitefully, but instead had done so in good fun.

She'd tackled him into the snow and when she'd smushed snow in his face and triggered a terrible flashback to his father burning his face, she'd been immediately contrite. He hadn't even had to tell her  _why_  he'd grown angry. She'd known and she'd apologised. She'd  _hugged_  him, even after he'd tried to choke her. No one ever hugged him except Uncle. And Uncle smelled unpleasant most of the time, so that hardly counted.

She hadn't asked for explanation, she'd even made sure to drag him inside so he wouldn't die, pouting in the snow. She was like no one he'd ever known. Worse still, she'd instigated a silly game of imagining what life could be like without the war. This was an actual game people played in the other Nations. They daydreamed about what life would be like if the Fire Nation wasn't waging war upon them.

Zuko felt sick to his stomach with the thought. All his life he'd been taught that his Nation was better than the others. More cultured. More sophisticated. More advanced. He'd never dreamed that the other Nations wouldn't  _want_  to be like the Fire Nation. Now? Now, Zuko knew the truth. The Fire Nation was greedy and cruel. They took what didn't belong to them and cut down any who thought to stand in their way. They didn't spread their knowledge, they spread terror and suffering.

And yet, Katara could sleep in his arms. She'd been driven from her home by his people. Robbed of her mother because of his people. Left without her father, who waged war against the Fire Nation far from his homeland and his family. She was the last – the very last – of her kind. There might be other Water Benders at the North Pole, but even his brief time spent there had proved there were plenty of differences between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes.

In his time within the Earth Kingdom so far, Zuko had seen a number of things that made him angry – angrier than his resting state, anyway. As the Blue Spirit, he had terrorised his own Nation. As the Blue Spirit, he had been fighting against his own people and the barbarianism they practiced. He felt no remorse when he killed Fire nation warriors that deserved it. At least, none beyond the twinge of regret that somewhere, some mother or father or brother or sister would receive news that their family member had been killed.

Katara was right. If there was ever to be peace again, it would be hard won, and even harder to maintain. The hatred the other Nations had for his own was profound and well earned. The trouble? The nagging issue that was keeping him awake despite the feel of a beautiful young woman lying in his arms?

He was destined to be the next Fire Lord. The problems of the world would one day land in his lap and he was coming to the realisation that he would  _not_  be following in his father's footsteps. He would  _not_ continue to sacrifice lives for the sake of dominating the world and claiming it all under one flaming banner.

He liked the Earth Kingdom. Their culture was rich and they made delicious dishes. It might not be spicy, as everything in the Fire Nation tended to be, but it was still tasty. He liked the people, too. They lived simple lives – those he'd witnessed – and they were content with their lot in life as long as the Fire Nation wasn't involved.

Everything his mother had taught him as a boy about the importance of peace and prosperity and kindness was beginning to outweigh the urge he felt to please his father. Squeezing his eyes closed, Zuko pulled Katara even closer. His chi had enveloped hers, wrapping around the pleasantly cool feel of her and holding her to him in a way he couldn't describe. He tried to imagine what Uncle would say if Zuko admitted his thoughts and his strange interest in the Water Bender.

Probably something about how life was about balance, Zuko thought grimly, and what balanced fire better than water?

Katara made a soft sound in her sleep and Zuko glanced at her. He twisted the arm she was using for a pillow and flicked his thumb, creating a tiny flame to illuminate her face in the dark. Her tribal features were screwed into a frown, as though she were having a nightmare. She slept heavily, not reacting to the light. When she whimpered a second time, Zuko frowned, wondering how to comfort her without waking her up.

He had one hand up her shirt for warmth and he found his fingers smoothing over her soft skin lightly, tracing patterns. Her features relaxed at the touch and Zuko felt a small sense of victory when she settled into a deeper sleep, allowing him to better examine her features. She was stunningly beautiful, if he was being honest.

Growing up, he'd been taught that girls like Ty Lee and Mai and Azula were beautiful, but in comparison to Katara, they seemed plain, somehow. Individually he could admit they were all beautiful girls. But there was something about Katara's features that seemed so removed from theirs; better somehow. Prettier. Maybe it was her cute button nose that kicked up slightly at the tip. Maybe it was the rich olive shade of her of skin. Maybe it was those big blue eyes of hers – when they were open – that seemed to express her every emotion. He'd never seen anything like them outside of the Water Tribes. The point was, Zuko was certain that she was more beautiful than any of the girls he knew from the Fire Nation.

He snorted to himself when it occurred to him that maybe she seemed more beautiful to him because she wasn't on the Fire Nation's side – on Azula's side, to be exact. Shaking his head at his own traitorous thoughts regarding his nation, Zuko let the fire he held fizzle out. Settling his head more comfortably on his pillow and shifting slightly until he could slide his knee between both of Katara's, tangling their ankles, Zuko closed his eyes and sighed softly, waiting for sleep to come.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Katara's eyes snapped open at the feel of something sliding against her back.

"Zuko?" she asked in a whisper. The sliding stopped.

"Are you awake?" he replied.

"I am now. What are you doing?" Katara asked. Sometime during the night she must've rolled in her sleep and she currently found herself being spooned – or partially spooned – by the Fire Bender.

"Getting up," Zuko said. "The wind stopped. We need supplies."

"Is it dawn yet?" Katara asked.

"No."

"You were going to steal supplies in the dead of night?" she asked, frowning. "Without me?"

"I didn't think you'd want to come. If anyone recognizes us, they'll have to be killed and you don't seem the killing type."

Katara sighed.

"I've never done so in cold blood," Katara admitted, wriggling out of the sleeping bag behind him when he proceeded to flip it open and vault over her prone form to get up now that he knew she was awake and didn't have to worry about disturbing her. "But I'm sure I've caused the inadvertent death of a number of Fire Nation soldiers since encountering Aang and leaving the South Pole."

Zuko flicked his hand to light the torch he kept in his belongings to give them light to see while they both rugged up warmly in their travelling gear.

"Do you intend to leave town after gathering supplies?" Katara asked.

"Not until we can be sure the storm won't kick up again," he shook his head. "No use leaving in the middle of the night only to have the storm begin blowing again by dawn."

"What do we need?" Katara asked seriously, dumping out all of her belongings.

"Food, mostly. The best place to get it will be from the Fire Nation barracks on the outskirts of the village."

"You want to rob the soldiers?" Katara blinked at him. "They'll catch us."

"No, they won't. You need to hide your face," he said. Katara watched the way he glanced at her, warily pulling the Blue Spirit mask from the bottom of his bag before fastening it to his face.

Katara herself used a scarf to cover her entire face, but for a small slit for her eyes. She pulled her hood up to protect her ears and hide her hair. Zuko nodded at her, taking his weapons with him and disappearing out the door. Katara followed only a few steps behind.

The entire village was quite, the snow soft and powdery under foot. Only the few flickering lights from candles in distant windows guided their way, but Zuko seemed to know where he was going. Katara suspected he spent the first day in any new town memorising the layout and all its escape routes.

They reached the base in silence and Zuko flung out an arm, pinning her to a wall in the shadows when a pair of sentries walked past. They didn't notice the two of them and Katara watched the way Zuko crept to the doors into the barracks when the sentries had rounded the corner. He moved silently in that mask and Katara watched, intrigued when he slipped past the entrance and down the hall.

He seemed to have the layout of the barracks memorised and she wondered if he'd already been in, if he'd scouted it already, or if every Fire Nation barracks like this one was simply built off the same plan. He was quick about his work, light on his feet and careful, leaping into the rafters when they heard voices down the hall. Katara followed suit, hauled up by him to where they wouldn't be spotted when a pair of men dressed in sleep-attire wandered past.

She opened her mouth to ask if he thought they were going to the kitchens until she heard one of them say they'd enjoyed their midnight snack. Zuko dropped from the rafters when they gone and darted down the hallway. She was right behind him when they slipped into a store-room off the mess hall. He handed he a sack and pointed her towards the dried fruit, nuts, and raw produce sections while he made for the preserved meats.

Working quickly, she grabbed as much as she thought they'd each be able to carry, knowing that the next town was several days walk from this village. Zuko appeared beside her before she was finished, scooping up other things they might need including toilet paper and soap. He waved a knife at her and pointed her to a small cupboard in the corner of the room.

Katara frowned, not knowing what was in it and wondering why he was directing her to it when he could raid it himself. She didn't risk arguing with him about it. When she opened it, her cheeks flushed. It was filled with the number of extra items female soldiers might need. Feminine products, women's clothing replacements, including underwear, socks, and clothes made to fit smaller frames. There was also boxes of Golden Thread Tea – a contraceptive tea.

Katara bit her lip as she raided the cupboard, snatching out things that might be useful to her in her travels. She'd never needed to use a contraceptive tea before. Her fling with Jet had been a brief, one-time encounter and she'd had no other prospects that caused the need for such a tea. She didn't imagine she would need any whilst travelling with Zuko. Yet, the tea was hard to come by. It was very expensive to buy – something she, Sokka and Aang would never afford whilst travelling together, whether she had need of it or not.

The idea of leaving it when she could take it now didn't sit well with her, but neither did the idea of taking it whilst in Zuko's company. What if he got the wrong idea? What if  _she_  had the wrong idea thanks to their weird chi connection messing with her head and the kiss yesterday being so good? Without the time to ponder the repercussions for taking or leaving it right then, Katara scooped a few boxes of the stuff into her bag along with everything else she wanted from that cupboard. If Zuko asked later or looked at her funny, she would simply point out how expensive it was to buy and stuff it in her bag.

Not that she thought he'd even ask. He wasn't Sokka – who was over-protective to the point of being a complete pain most of the time. Neither was he Aang – who was entirely too naïve and too inquisitive for his own good. Zuko might take note of what she'd grabbed, but like most boys he'd probably be too embarrassed by her need for menstrual things to even look until she'd put all of that stuff away. Katara was banking on that notion. She didn't even want to imagine how embarrassing a conversation it would be if Zuko asked her why she'd stolen contraceptive tea in his company. Then again, he was probably arrogant enough to think she might have a crush on him even though he was a rotten jerk who'd chased them across the world.

As soon as she had everything she thought they'd need, in as high a portion as she could carry, she looked over at Zuko. He was still raiding some of the cupboards looking for things that might come in handy. She was crossing toward him when the sound of someone jiggling the door-handle startled both of them. Katara glanced at him, wide-eyed but before she could even begin to panic, Zuko dove across the small store room and collided with her. He pulled her to the far corner of the room and shoved her down to squat behind a barrel of what looked like sea prunes.

Katara frowned when he slotted himself in right behind her, his whole body curling around hers protectively and forcing her into the even more cramped space. He never made a sound and Katara's heart raced inside her chest when the door to the store room opened. She watched from a peek hole around the barrel as a young female soldier walked in. She was dressed for sneaking around and Katara smirked. That messy bed-head look made her think she knew what the soldier was after at this time of night that she might not want anyone to know about.

The woman was fire bending a small flame to see by, just barely enough to light the space in front of her to see where she was going and find her way to the cupboard. Zuko positively vibrated with the need to escape and Katara had to grab his arm when the other woman tripped over a box of apples on her way across the small space. She wasn't paying any attention to her surroundings within the room, only focused on getting to the cupboard to get what she wanted, glancing regularly back toward the door in case anyone else had the same idea.

When Zuko shifted slightly as though he were intending to spring out and attack the woman Katara grabbed his wrist and pulled him even closer toward her. The woman was oblivious to their presence, it seemed. Zuko twisted his wrist in Katara's grip, trying to get loose. She held on tighter taking the dagger he clutched and tucking it into her boot before resorting to pressing his palm to her flat stomach and pinning it there with one of her thighs. He gripped her tight in annoyance, but still didn't make a sound. The woman fishing in the cupboard found what she was looking for. Katara watched as she withdrew a small metal canister from her pocket and opened a box of the Golden Thread tea. She upended the contents into the canister, filling it and concealing it in a way that it wouldn't be recognised for what it actually was. When she was done, the woman used her Bending to burn the box the tea had come in, incinerating it until there was nothing but a small pile of ash left.

Zuko squirmed against Katara again, obviously not liking the feel of waiting for the woman to catch them at any moment. But she never even glanced in their direction. She hurried back out of the store room, forgetting to properly latch the door behind her in her haste.

"Wait until she's gone all the way back to bed," Katara breathed to Zuko, refusing to let him loose.

He still didn't speak, but Katara could tell he was annoyed with her when he stood a minute later, hauling her up with him before reaching down and retrieving his knife from her boot. He pointed the tip at her in warning and though she couldn't see his expression behind his mask, she got the message loud and clear that he was angry and not to ever take one of his knives from him again. She rolled her eyes in return, hauling on her sack of looted supplies. He made for the door quickly, scouting outside of it before ducking through it. Katara followed without a word.

Skulking back through the base was harder when they were both hauling sacks of supplies. They wouldn't be able to vault into the rafters if anyone happened along. Zuko peeked around each corner, ready to kill anyone who got in their way. When they reached the door, he held up his hand, silently telling her to wait a moment. When he slipped out the door before recoiling quickly, she realised that the sentries were doing another round.

"Did you hear that?" one of them asked, tipping his head slightly. Katara watched carefully, wincing when they both brightened the torches they carried to illuminate more ground around them.

"Hear what?" the other one asked.

"Thought I heard the door."

"Probably Ling trying to sneak out and meet you," one of them ribbed the other. "Or than change-over crew. It's almost time for our shift to end.

Katara held her breath and kept her eyes fixed on Zuko when he moved silently. He slipped the handle of his bag into her grip before pulling his swords from their sheath. Realising he meant to kill them to get free, Katara shook her head at him. She tried to plead with her eyes, begging him to be still and quiet until they grew bored. She closed her eyes in horror when sound of more voices came from behind them down the hall. It must be almost time to change sentries, she realised. Zuko shot her a look, though she couldn't even see his eyes behind his mask, and Katara realised he was going to make a break for it. Gripping the handles of both bags and trusting him to be able to defeat the two sentries, Katara nodded.

As soon as he sprang out the door, swords flashing to the sound of surprised shouts from the guards, Katara bolted. She didn't stop to wait for him, trusting to him to be able to catch up with her. She raced into the night, struggling under the weight of both supply sacks. There was a sound of Fire Bending, a clang of swords and a wretched sounding gurgle behind her as she raced down a side street and into the heart of the village. Shouts followed, the sound of pounding feet meeting her ears. The guards had alerted more soldiers before Zuko could silence them and Katara cursed when she realised she was being chased.

A glance over her shoulder told her it wasn't Zuko. Cursing again, Katara panicked. She couldn't bend with both hands full and the sacks were too heavy, slowing her down. Darting around a corner, Katara made a snap decision. She was going to have to stash the sacks and come back for them later. Skidding around another corner, she spotted a trash can behind one of the house. Opening it quickly she was relieved to see it was all but empty. Lifting both sacks inside, she concealed the evidence of their raid, knowing she'd be able to find her way back. As she ran, she worked on uncovering her face, unwinding her scarf and searching the darkness for any sign of Zuko.

Soldiers could be heard calling across the village now, a full alert being issued thanks to the idea that the barracks had been robbed and the Blue Spirit had killed people. She'd spotted more than one person out and about as dawn rapidly approached, the reprieve from the weather driving people outdoors. If she could make it look like she was just out for an early morning stroll, she wouldn't be arrested. Katara squeaked in terror as she rounded another corner only to feel strong arms wrap around her from behind. One hand covered her mouth to prevent her from making a sound and Katara tried to stomp on her assailant's foot.

"It's me!" Zuko hissed in her ear, stilling her flailing instantly. Katara almost squawked a second time when he spun her in his hold, dragging her a ways down a dingy alley off the street where she'd been running.

He'd ditched his mask somewhere and just like she'd done, he'd tried to make it look like he was blending in. He'd discarded his long swords somewhere as well. The sound of pounding footstep from the soldiers racing past the alley drew her gaze but before she could focus on anyone, Zuko's hot hand cupped her chin and tipped her head up enough that he could plant his lips on hers.


	7. Chapter 7

Katara was ashamed to admit she melted. He kissed her hard, tangling a hand into her hair and knocking her hood from her head even as his tongue swept into her mouth. Already panting from running, Katara was certain she forgot how to breathe for a few seconds before kissing him back. It occurred to her that he was only kissing her to make it look like they hadn't raided the barracks. That by doing so, they might look like rebellious teenagers who'd snuck out to rendezvous rather than like fugitives, but those facts fell by the wayside as heat seemed to suffuse her. His lips were warm and firm against her own, his free hand sliding up inside her coat and pressing her closer to him.

She found her own hands pulling at him, trying to get him even closer as instinct took over. She almost forgot that there were even soldiers after them, with him kissing her so soundly. His tongue tangled with hers and he pressed himself against her hotly, making her body react in ways she was certain she would blush over later. When her back hit the wall of the alley, he rocked himself against her and Katara's eyes rolled back in her head.

She lost herself in the feel of his lips and the taste of his tongue. She shivered with delight at the heat that radiated from him and she almost groaned at the feel of their chi brushing together when he rocked himself against her a second time. Dimly, she was aware of voices drawing closer, but she was too busy kissing Zuko to take any notice of them.

"Hey! You kids!" one of the soldiers called.

Zuko kissed her harder, tensing against her at the sound of the soldier's voice. It was a woman speaking and Katara supposed she should glance at them to better throw them off their trail.

"Hey! Lovebirds!" the woman tried again.

"Huh?" Katara blinked when Zuko pulled back from her lips and kissed his way along the length of her jaw, burying his face against the fabric of her coat to better hide his scar.

Realising he wanted her to deal with the soldier, Katara tried to focus bleary eyes on the woman. She dimly noted that it was the same soldier who'd raided the women's cupboard in the barracks and almost caught them.

"Did either of you see someone in a blue mask run by here?" the soldier asked.

"Hmm?" Katara asked, not even having to feign a lack of understanding for the question when Zuko lightly nipped her neck before drawing the flesh into his mouth and suckling at it.

"I said, did you see anyone run by?" the solider said and despite the questions, she didn't look angry.

"I... oh, god!" Katara pretended to spot the woman, letting her eyes bug wide and gripping Zuko tighter in a feigned panic. He tensed even further until Katara blurted, "Please don't tell my father you saw us!"

The soldier blinked in surprise.

"Not supposed to be out here, eh?" she chuckled.

Katara shook her head.

"Please? Please don't say anything? He'll be so angry with me," Katara pretended to plead.

"You didn't see anyone run by?" the woman asked, looking sympathetic and Katara fought a smile when the woman seemed to buy the act. Her own midnight sneaking to get her hands on Golden Thread tea obviously lent her a certain empathy to the idea of being inappropriate with someone she shouldn't.

"I didn't even hear you come up to us," Katara whispered, "Please. I snuck out when I wasn't supposed to."

The woman chuckled.

"You should pay better attention to your surroundings so you don't get caught," the woman admonished them. "Well, if either of you see anyone in a Blue Spirit mask, don't engage him. He's armed and dangerous."

"You'll keep my secret?" Katara pretended hopefulness, whimpering ever so slightly when Zuko nibbled her neck hard enough to draw blood to the surface in a love bite.

"This time, little one," the soldier smiled. "Thanks for your help."

She nodded her head and turned away just as Zuko lifted his head from Katara's neck to capture her lips once more, selling the idea that they simply couldn't keep their hands off one another.

"Did you check them?" another soldier, this one male, could be heard asking when the woman reached the mouth of the alley.

"Yeah, just a couple of randy kids hiding their relationship from their parents. Come on, he must've gone this way."

Katara might've laughed with victory if not for the way Zuko was kissing her hot enough to make her whole body tingle. When they could no longer hear their voices, Zuko pulled back from her slowly. His eyes glittered with something she couldn't describe when Katara blinked at him dazedly.

"What did you do with the supplies?" he asked, his voice low and husky even as he stood pressed so close that she could feel she wasn't the only one whose body had reacted to the heat of their kisses.

"Hid them. A few houses back there's an empty trash can behind a house," Katara whispered. "Where's your mask and your swords?"

"Hidden under a house a few streets over," he muttered. His eyes darted to her lips once more and Katara licked them self-consciously. "How did you know she'd buy the act of hiding from your father?"

"She was the one who broke into the cupboard in the store room," Katara whispered, spying another solider patrol out the corner of her eyes and reaching up on her toes to peck him on the lips again.

"So?"

"She was stealing Golden Thread tea," Katara murmured, dotting a line of butterfly kisses along the length of his jaw. Her stomach was doing somersaults and she was sure her heart might gallop right out of her chest to touch him so intimately yet so casually under the pretence of their facade. For his part, Zuko seemed rather gifted at making it look and even feel like he was into the idea of kissing her and touching her, yet when he spoke he sounded as though he were completely level-headed and as though he knew it was all just an act.

"What's tea got to do with anything?" he frowned, ducking his head slightly to press his lips to her ear when more soldiers walked by.

"It's a contraceptive tea women use to keep from getting pregnant," she explained in a low whisper. "There were boxes and boxes of it in that cupboard. She was stealing some in the dead of night, which means she's taking it in secret. Meaning she's likely carrying on a secret affair with another soldier or her commanding officer. Which, I'm assuming, is against Fire Nation army regulations. She was empathetic to the idea of a couple of kids hiding their relationship because she's hiding one of her own."

"You figured all that out from seeing a woman stealing supplies?" he asked. He sounded like the very idea baffled him. "What would you have done if she'd tried to use the information to blackmail you into helping her instead?"

Katara slid her hand up the back of his shirt and jiggled the knife she'd learned he kept tucked down into the waistband of his pants. His chuckle was cold and cruel and entirely unexpected in response to the idea.

"You got lucky," he muttered before tipping his head slightly and catching her lips again. Katara subconsciously pulled him closer, sighing against his lips and listening as more of the patrolling soldiers wandered by without disturbing them. She suspected the other guard must've tipped them off that they didn't know anything and so no one approached or interrupted the hot kisses he pressed to her lips.

She didn't know how long she stood there in the alley kissing him. Long enough that her jaw started to hurt and she was sure she could strip naked and not be cold with him so hot against her. Her mind kept trying to make arguments for what Sokka and Aang would say if they could see her, standing in an alley surrounded by Fire Nation soldiers whilst kissing the life out of Prince Zuko. Before even a single argument could fully form, he'd stroke his tongue against hers again and Katara would lose her train of thought.

"The sun's rising," he muttered sometime later, his husky voice breaking through the haze of euphoria surrounding her. "We need to get those supplies and get back to the house before we'll be spotted carrying them."

Katara nodded, realising he'd worked his hands under the hem of her shirt to grip the small of her back, their heat searing her skin deliciously.

"What about your swords and your mask?" she whispered.

"I'll get them," he murmured.

He seemed reluctant to step back from her even when doing so was the course of action they needed to take.

"Should we split up?" she asked. "Make them think the rising sun is driving us home before we can be caught?"

"Probably."

He pulled back from her slowly and Katara heard him sigh out a breath before he looked down at himself. She pressed her lips together to hold back her giggle when she spotted what his problem was, the faint bulge in his pants that she'd grown used to feeling against her making itself known to the rest of the world as he tried to walk. As though sensing the laughter she was holding back, Zuko glared at her and Katara snorted.

"Shut up!" he snapped.

"I didn't say a word," she protested.

"Your face did," he muttered, his own face glowing crimson with his embarrassment over the natural reactions of his body to hers. "Can you carry both supply sacks?"

"If I don't have to run, I can. But I'll draw attention heaving two huge sacks along the street," she replied.

He nodded.

"Which house was it where you stashed them? Show me," he nodded her ahead of him toward the mouth of the alley, pulling his hood up carefully to hide his face and his scar lest the soldiers spot it.

Katara did as he asked, holding back more giggles when he waited for her to go first before subtly trying to rearrange himself for ease of walking. Realising it would look suspicious if they didn't maintain the facade of being a couple besotted with one another, she slowed her steps until he drew level with her before looping her arm around his waist. He glared at her again before slinging one arm around her shoulders to better make them look like a couple.

"I'm going to make you pay for this," he warned when a tiny giggle escaped her at his sour expression.

"What makes you think I'm not already paying for it?" she blurted before realising what she'd said. Her cheeks flamed crimson at the idea of having him know that her body had reacted to the kissing and the touching, too.

He slanted a glance at her with one eyebrow raised before spotting her pink cheeks and mortified expression. Katara squirmed when his eyes travelled the length of her body to stare at the junction of her thighs. The many layers of fabric upon her person hid the dampness of her knickers, but she suspected he knew what she was dealing with just the same. When he began to laugh again, sounding entirely too smug for his own good, Katara walloped him once more.


	8. Chapter 8

They went separate ways after collecting the supply sacks and Katara couldn't be more relieved. Zuko was a smug jerk and she was thinking seriously about freezing him to a wall and leaving him to think about what he'd done. She hauled her sack back their camp, muttering to herself the whole way, his laughter still ringing in her ears.

It hardly seemed fair that he would scold her for laughing when he had a problem to deal with, but when she had a less obvious but no less uncomfortable issue of the same variety to suffer through, he laughed as though it were the best joke he'd ever been told. Muttering and hauling her sack of supplies, she was more determined than ever to reach their camp before him so she'd be able to unpack her sack and hide the Golden Thread tea. The last thing she wanted with him laughing at her for her body's attraction to his, was for him to think she'd nabbed contraceptives for any reason whatsoever.

It didn't even warrant thinking about that her body was only too interested in the idea of using the tea for its intended purpose from that very morning. Her cheeks burned at the very thought and she realised that she needed to find Sokka and Aang more than ever. The sooner she did, the sooner she could be free of Zuko and his infernal chi and his wretched warmth and his cursed lips. She'd thought Jet had been intoxicating when she'd met him but he had nothing on Zuko and  _that_ , she decided, was a problem.

When she reached their hideout, Katara slipped inside and climbed the stairs quickly. She dumped the bag of supplies on the bed and made a dash for the bathroom before Zuko could return. He still hadn't by the time she was finished and Katara was grateful.

Upending the bag she'd used to steal everything, Katara's cheeks flamed even hotter when she realised she'd grabbed the wrong sack. This was the one Zuko had filled, mostly with meat, and therefor did  _not_ have the tea inside it to be hidden with the rest of her things. Cursing out loud, Katara closed her eyes in annoyance. She almost jumped out of her skin when Zuko slipped into the room quietly and snuck up on her before she'd opened them again.

Lashing out violently in her surprise, he did not look impressed to have cold, stale tea from last night's drink whipping him on the forehead.

"Hey!" he protested before throwing a fireball at her that stopped just short of her nose.

"Don't sneak up on me!" Katara hissed at him, her bad mood getting the best of her.

"What's your problem?" Zuko demanded, eyeing her like she might've lost her mind in the last ten minutes.

"Nothing!" she snapped.

He rolled his eyes and looked unconvinced.

"Give me that!" she pointed to the sack he carried. "You grabbed my bag."

"I can see that," he replied. Katara would swear he looked smug about it too. "Did anyone follow you back here?"

"Did you see anyone lurking about downstairs when you came back?" she asked. Zuko shook his head. "Then obviously not."

He didn't say anything, but the look on his face let her know he didn't appreciate her sarcasm or her bad mood and Katara thought about water-whipping him again just for spite.

"We're leaving today," he warned her. "So pack your things and prepare to leave."

Katara made a face at him. She'd been entertaining notions of returning to bed once their supplies were sorted out. They'd been up half the night.

Zuko pack his own stuff in silence, separating the food supplies and everything they'd gathered in two. When he up-ended the sack of thigs she'd collected, his cheeks turned pink. Menstrual straps and other things tumbled out and he looked uncomfortable.

"Do I want to know what you need all this stuff for?" he asked when she didn't speak before beginning to stuff all of it into her bag.

"Do you want to know that more than my bending is affected by the cycle of the moon," she retorted acidly. Zuko made a face of disgust at the idea.

"Am I going to have to put up with your bad mood when that happens?" he demanded.

"I put up with your bad attitude every second of every day, Zuko! Deal with it!"

He scowled at her. "What? Are you having that issue now or something?"

Katara lobbed the nearest object she could reach right at his head. He wasn't expecting the blow and he growled in the back of his throat in fury when the box of Golden Thread tea hit him in the nose.

"I'll take that as a yes," he snapped. When Katara lunged for the box of tea, realising with mortification what she'd thrown, he snatched it out of her reach.

"What is this? Ah." His smirk was purely wicked. "This is the tea your new soldier-friend was hunting for."

"Give it back!"

Zuko held it up high so she wouldn't be able to reach it without standing up, his arms longer than hers. When she glared at him but didn't keep reaching for it, he held the package up to the light so that he could read it carefully, looking curious. Katara's cheeks burned with shame when he did so for an inordinate amount of time while she shoved the other two boxes of it into her bag.

"Don't leave them in those," he said even as he read the box.

"What?" she asked. She lifted her gaze to stare at him in confusion.

"The boxes are too obviously Fire Nation," he said. "Empty all of it into this."

Katara blinked in surprise when he handed her a small earthen tea box with several empty canisters inside. There were nine canisters in total, one labelled as White Jasmine tea and another as Ginseng. The rest were empty.

"Why do you have a mostly empty tea box?" Katara asked.

"Why do you have contraceptive tea?" Zuko asked in return rather than answering.

Her cheeks went crimson once more when he slanted a glance at her. She was surprised to see he looked curious under a layer of hostility, but not smug. Maybe he wasn't automatically assuming she's stolen it intent on seducing him. Katara supposed that, with a scar like his, he wasn't used to getting much female attention.

"I... it's very expensive to buy," she muttered. "I've never used it before but I remember Gran-Gran giving it to some of the women in the village before the men all went off to war. She always told me that until I was sixteen - the age for marriage eligibility in the Water tribe - I would not be permitted to use it, as I shouldn't have need of it before then."

"Then why now, Water Bender?"

"It was there," Katara shrugged. "I've been sixteen for months but when I was travelling with Aang and Sokka we couldn't exactly spare the coins to buy it and there wasn't need for it. It's not exactly easy to have a romantic life whilst travelling on a flying bison with a twelve year old and my elder brother. If I'd even suggested buying it, Aang would've been as naive as ever and not known what it was for until I spelled it out for him. And Sokka would probably have had an aneurysm at the idea of any boy looking at me sideways, let alone me needing to drink contraceptive tea."

"You weren't using it when you slept with Jet?" Zuko frowned at her.

Katara blushed even brighter at the casual way he said such a thing.

"I didn't need to," she admitted. "The same way I can feel my bending getting stronger with the moon, I can feel when I'm going to... you know... and so I'd have known if I  _could_  get pregnant when I was with him. Luckily, I couldn't have at that point of the month - rather, doing so would've been an anomaly."

"When did you encounter him, again?" Zuko asked. Katara's face flamed again when his eyes dropped to her stomach - which was flat and toned and not at all beginning to thicken with pregnancy.

"Months ago," she answered. "So don't look at me like that. I'm not pregnant."

"This says it prevents pregnancy from occurring when it's already in your system at the time of... interactions, or can be used to terminate if pregnancy occurs. Maybe you should have some now."

"I'm not pregnant!" Katara said, mortified.

"You can't be certain. And it would be really inconvenient if you were, Water Bender."

"I'm not. When a woman is pregnant, her blood won't come during those months. Mine has come three times since I met Jet."

"Still," Zuko shrugged.

"Why are you pushing this?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes on him. "Do you  _want_  me to drink it?"

Zuko lifted his head slowly to look at her before he answered. "Yes."

Katara blinked at him, a small frown of confusion marring her brow.

"You want me to take it... because...?" she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Don't give me that look," he snapped. "I'm not planning to seduce you out of your sarashi wraps."

"Then why would you want me to be drinking contraceptive tea, Zuko?" she asked, unsure if she should be relieved or offended by the disgust in his tone.

She watched him open the box of tea and dump the leaves into one of the canisters before he used a piece of chalk to write "Golden Thread" on the lid. He snatched the second and third box from her and dumped them into the same canister until it almost wouldn't close.

"If you plan to continue going along with the facade of us being a couple whenever we get into trouble with the Fire Nation soldiers, it would make sense for you to be prepared for all potential outcomes of that venture," Zuko answered carefully, not meeting her gaze.

"You just said you don't plan to seduce me," she replied, frowning.

"I didn't plan on kissing you half the night when we went on a supply run, either," he snapped. "But it bloody well happened out there, didn't it?"

"You think we'd have to go so far as actual intercourse for the sake of the façade?" Katara frowned at him.

She squealed in surprise when Zuko lunged at her, knocking her to her back on her sleeping bag before he gripped her chin between tight fingers.

"I think that if you have to ask, you've been underestimating the ruthlessness of the Fire Lord's army," he said coldly. "They would make us fuck while they watched just to make us uncomfortable. If they got it into their heads that they liked the look of you, they'd try to fuck you themselves. You're not with the Avatar now. There's no flying bison to whisk you away to safety when the soldiers come. There's no Aang to fly into the Avatar state to protect you, Katara. All you've got is your own bending abilities; what little fighting skills I can teach you, and me. Do you want to risk getting pregnant to a Fire Nation soldier if you're taken prisoner? Do you think they're all decent men who won't lay a hand on you without your consent?"

His amber eyes were cold, boring into her own with such an intensity that she was sure she might never be the same.

"Stop it, Zuko. You're scaring me," Katara whispered, feeling tears prickle in her eyes thanks to his tight grip and his terrifying words.

"Good!" he hissed. "If you get captured, you'll  _wish_  you'd been drinking that tea, Water Bender. Worse, if we're both captured and they think you're in league with me or that you're really my girlfriend, they'll make you wish you'd never _heard_  of the Fire Nation. You said that the idea hadn't occurred to your brother or the Avatar that you drink this stuff? That it wasn't priority when you do your supply shopping? It should be. You're one of the most wanted criminals alive. You travel with the Avatar. You disrupt Fire Nations take-overs, fight the soldiers and otherwise upset the wagons of war. And you're the last Water Bender from the Southern Tribe - someone believed to have been wiped out years ago. You were already going to suffer if you were ever captured, Katara. Now? Travelling with the exiled and dethroned Prince of the Fire Nation? Faking a relationship - physical or romantic - with the second Most Wanted criminal in the Four Nations? They'll eat you alive."

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and down her cheek to soak into her hair at the way he laid out the cold, hard truth of the life she was now living.

"I don't care what your intention for the tea was when you grabbed it, Water Bender. From here on out, you drink it for your own bloody good. Every day. Starting now." Zuko released her chin and levered himself off her, quick as lightning. He was on his feet and carrying the teapot out of the room to the nearest window before she could even form a sentence. When he returned, the pot was empty and he held it out expectantly, waiting for her to fill it with water once more.

Katara blinked more tears from her eyes as she flicked her wrist, summoning the magic within herself to pull the water from the snow outside and channel it into the pot. As soon as it was full, Zuko began fire bending to bring the water to a boil. He fished their two cups from his belongings and dumped the recommended amount of Golden Thread tea into her cup before pouring the water over it and waiting for it to steep. He even made himself a cup of Ginseng while he waited. Katara was silent, trying to control the urge she had to cry.

She didn't like thinking about all he'd said to her. She'd known, of course, that such a thing was a possibility while she'd been travelling alone. She'd known she was in danger if she wasn't careful. The idea that she would be in further danger as a result of associating with Zuko made her feel scared. Indeed, she was torn between fear of what being in his company if she was caught would mean, and the strange, niggling sense she had that if she was captured and he wasn't, he would do everything in his power to save her. She couldn't describe the sense she had that it was true, but as she watched his tight, controlled movements when he handed her the cup of tea he'd made for her - to the exact dosage the box said she should drink - she suspected he would slaughter battalions of his own people to rescue her from such a fate.

It was almost as though he felt guilty that her association with him might cause her trouble. She drank the tea he'd given her without protest, though she did make a face at the bitter taste of it.

"It tastes terrible," Katara complained just to fill the silence. Zuko glanced at her, having returned to packing his bag whilst sipping occasionally as his tea.

She wondered if he had taken ill when he silently picked up his cup and offered her the rest of his Ginseng tea to wash down the Golden Thread brew.

"I thought they'd have figured out a way to mix it with other, nice tasting tea leaves to properly mask the taste," Katara sighed. She'd momentarily tossed up the idea of refusing his tea because he'd been drinking out of it, but what did sharing a drink matter when they'd been swapping spit whilst kissing for nigh on an hour before dawn?

"Maybe that make it bitter so it's not consumed by mistake," he argued, handing her a small bag to carry some of the dried meats in so it wouldn't just flake all over the rest of her stuff. "I wouldn't put it past of people like my Uncle to try it by mistake if he was all out of everything else. One sip and he'd spit it out and refuse to drink it."

"Do you want to try it?" Katara asked when she noticed the way Zuko watched her pinching her nose to take big gulps of the hot liquid.

"It's for girls," he shook his head.

"A sip won't kill you," she said, holding the cup toward him and refusing to budge until he took it. His curiosity got the better of him and Katara watched his take a small sip before immediately spitting it on the floor and handing the cup back to her.

"Yeah, Uncle would never drink  _that_  by mistake. It's lucky I labelled it for what it really is. I was going to just label it as "Katara's Tea" since I would know not to drink it, but when we find Uncle, he'll take back his tea chest and he'd have tried it just to find out what it is."

"He really likes tea, doesn't he?" Katara smiled. "I noticed while I was following you that you kept looking for him in tea shops. At first I thought it was because they're good for seeking gossip, but then I noticed that you always order tea, but never seem to actually like it when it's given to you."

"Uncle probably cares more about tea than he does about most other things in life," Zuko said. Katara watched the way a small, almost affectionate smile crossed his usually scowling visage. The expression transformed his whole face. Ordinarily, his bright amber eyes, his terrible scar and his fierce expression made him look angry and unapproachable. But with that small smile on his face, she could barely notice the scar.

It was almost as though the rare smile negated the scar completely. Katara opened her mouth to tell him he was much more handsome when he smiled, but she closed her mouth again just as quickly when she realised saying so would likely just anger him. Instead she took another gulp of the Golden Thread tea until it was gone and washed it down with the Ginseng.

"I'm sure he's fonder of you than he is of tea, Zuko," Katara said quietly when a little frown arranged itself back on Zuko's face after she washed and dried the cups.

"He is," Zuko admitted in a quiet voice. He looked conflicted over the idea, as though he were worried that he'd never see his Uncle again and Katara smiled to herself.

"You miss him," she said. "I miss my friends too. I've spent so long relying on them for comfort and company that being away from them is hard. I know that you and I don't exactly see eye to eye, Zuko, but for the purpose of travelling together I'd like it if we weren't constantly hostile to one another. You might not be familiar in the sense that we're friends, but you're more familiar than the thousands of faces I've never seen before. Even if you  _did_  try to kidnap my friends and hurt me and my brother to do it. Repeatedly."

Zuko looked over at her, a glare on his face once more. She could tell he was still conflicted over the idea of travelling with her, but that he too was sick of travelling alone.

"Just stay out of my way and don't draw unnecessary attention to either of us, Water Bender," he said.

Katara smirked.

"Should we discuss the other issue now, or wait until we're better rested?" she asked, raising one eyebrow at him as she piled all the food she could carry into her bag, stuffed her clothes inside and began rolling up her sleeping bag.

"What issue?" he asked warily. He narrowed his eyes on her.

"The part where, technically, we're enemies. Enemies who've been kissing each other."

"You said yourself that it was for the sake of hiding our identities so we don't get caught by the Fire Nation soldiers," he protested.

"And it is. I just want to figure out how far you intend to push the boundaries of what's for hiding your face so no one recognises your scar. I don't want you to get the wrong idea about me drinking this infernal tea you're forcing me to drink," Katara said.

Zuko narrowed his eyes on her.

"I doubt I could  _force_ you to do much of anything, Water Bender," he growled. "So don't accuse me of forcing medicinal tea on you. It's for your own confounded good and it was  _you_  who stole the terrible stuff in the first place."

"Don't get so defensive," Katara sighed, rolling her eyes. "I'm not accusing you of anything and I'll drink the wretched tea because you're right. Before I ran into you, I'd barely slept in weeks for fear of being assaulted or kidnapped.  _You_  were the one who said something about the soldiers pushing us far enough to have sex, Zuko. So I want to know what, exactly, you're planning to do in regard to travelling with me."

"Are you suggesting that you think I'm going to force myself on you?" he demanded, his temper flaring immediately.

"I'm suggesting that you said they might  _make_  us!" Katara snapped. "For once could you stop being so buggering sensitive and be straight with me? What is your plan? So far every time we've kissed it was because the soldiers might've recognised us or accused us of things otherwise. So far, we've pretended to be a young couple who were separated and then reunited thanks to the storms, and a couple disobeying their parents to carry on a relationship."

"Are you saying you  _want_  to be my girlfriend?" Zuko asked, his eyes narrowed hatefully.

"I'm saying that I need to know if you're going to get your panties in a twist every time we have to fake it and whether you only intend to do so under pressure on the fly like what happened this morning. Do you only want to use the cover story of being a couple when kissing helps hide your identity? Or do you intend to have everyone we encounter from here on out thinking that?"

Zuko kept glaring at her for so long that she was sure her cheeks had turned pink.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

Katara blinked at the question, confused by why he would even put it on her without giving his personal feelings on the matter.

"I think that if we pretend to be together, people will ask less questions. It will make doing things like sleeping at Inns easier since this isn't really ideal weather for camping.  _But_  if we tell everyone we meet that we're a couple, it will confuse the people we're searching for. Aang and Sokka would dismiss a lead about a couple travelling together if they followed after me and heard gossip about it. Your Uncle probably would too, since you're not known to have a girlfriend. If they're following us, they'll overlook the story of us as a couple and search elsewhere."

Zuko looked thoughtful. He frowned as he rolled up his bed-roll while Katara pulled a strip of jerky from the pile still waiting to be packed or tucked away into pockets and pouches on their combined persons. She chewed it as she stared at the Prince of the Fire Nation.

"We tell people who ask that we're together," he muttered finally. "They'll assume it anyway, so most won't ask. I think you should use your real name. The Wanted posters for you don't actually list your name, so if you leave your name with people in each place, your brother and the Avatar will follow stories of a girl by your description and your name. I can't use my real name, but I've been going by Lee and Uncle has been going by Mushi since the posters went up labelling us both traitors to the Fire Nation."

"Do you want me to call you Lee?" Katara asked.

"In public," he nodded. "Where no one else can overhear you, Zuko is preferable. But I don't think any of them are following us. I think we'll find them first. That sky beast won't be able to fly in the weather conditions we've been having, so if they're travelling at all, it will be on foot. How did you get separated from them anyway?"

He picked up the remaining items on the floor when her pockets where all full and tucked them away, chewing his own strip of jerky. He nodded her down the steps ahead of him, leaving nothing inside the room they'd used for two nights.

"We were flying on Appa when the blizzard hit," Katara admitted. "Appa was descending towards land, but I was blown from his back when a tornado of snow hit. Aang was trying to keep Appa and Momo from getting lost in the winds, and Sokka was almost torn loose from the saddle. When I tried to grab him, I missed and I was blown free. They were carried away in the tornado while I was flung free. I search all the nearby areas when I could move after my landing – I was pretty banged up – but there was no sign of them. I think Aang was so busy trying to get us all to safety that he didn't notice I was missing until after getting the others free of the tornado."

Zuko walked abreast with her when they reached the street, seeming to agree without speaking on the direction they were heading.

"How did you and Iroh get separated?" she asked in return.

"We had a stupid fight," he admitted. "We were at odds over what we should do next. He wanted to go to Ba Sing Se as refugees and blend into the city until the search for us was dropped. He was also content to get there by begging for coins and living off the bare essentials we could afford. I wasn't."

"You went out to steal supplies and the storm hit before you could get back to him?" she guessed.

Zuko nodded. "By the time I could travel again, it had been almost a week. I returned to where he'd been, but he was gone. I've been looking for him, but drifting toward Ba Sing Se. If he's doing the same thing, thinking I'll be heading that way, we'll eventually run into each other on our way into the city."

"I thought you were headed that way," she said. "We were heading for Ba Sing Se too. We went back to Omashu to have King Bumi teach Aang Earth Bending, but the city had been invaded and Bumi was taken captive. Having to find someone else, we were going to search Ba Sing Se for someone to teach him."

"Will they head that way?" Zuko asked.

"They'll be looking for me," Katara shrugged. "They might do the same thing you think Iroh will do, travel to the city thinking I'll do the same."

"So Ba Sing Se is our destination?" he confirmed.

"Well, not  _today,_ " Katara laughed. "Going on foot, in this kind of weather? It could take us months to reach Ba Sing Se, Zuko."

"I know," he grumbled. "So, I guess you'd better get used to me."


	9. Chapter 9

By nightfall, they were both tired and cranky. Zuko glared at the Water Bender he'd been coerced into travelling with. It had been many long hours since he'd pressed her into the wall before dawn and kissed her until his groin ached. It felt like it had been even longer since he'd had a decent sleep.

He was tried; he was cranky because the wind was picking up again and looked like it might force them back the way they'd come; and he was thinking about throttling the littler Water Bender. She flip-flopped between chattering animatedly, even when he didn't want to talk – something that reminded him a little too much of his Uncle – and being as cranky and volatile in her mood swings as Zuko himself.

He was cold and he was sick of plodding through the snow, even after Katara used her Bending to clear them a path. He wanted to go home. He wanted the security of his ship from before his crew had been confiscated and the ship blown up - before he'd been labelled a traitor. He wanted to warmth of the Palace in the Fire Nation from before he'd been banished. He wanted a warm bed on soft downy pillows and to not have to lug around enough furs and warm clothing to hang himself with.

Worst of all, he wanted the intoxicating feel of that chatty little Water Bender pressed against every inch of him until he couldn't tell where his body and his chi ended or where hers began. He wanted to crawl back into his sleeping bag and hold the little brat until he was warm and then he wanted to strangle her for being such a pain in the ass.

And  _that_ , he decided, was a problem. He shouldn't be this intrigued by her. It might have been a long time since he'd had a girlfriend and it might've been even longer since he'd laid a hand on a woman he didn't have to pay for the privilege - something he was extremely bitter over - but he shouldn't be this interested in the bloody Water Bender. Pretty or not, she was the enemy. Well, not  _the enemy_ , but she was working with the Avatar and if Zuko ever wanted to return home, he would have to capture or kill the Avatar to do it. He was thinking Katara wouldn't be too pleased with him for either option and so it simply wouldn't do to go getting attached.

"We should make camp," the annoying distraction said. Zuko did his level best to tear his eyes from her ass, which he'd been ogling as she walked in front of him to bend the snow out of their way.

"Here?" he asked sceptically, glancing around the area and seeing nothing but snow covered trees and boulders. "There's no cover. We need to find a cave or something. My tent isn't going to hold up against the wind if it picks up any more."

She smirked at him over her shoulder.

"Come with me," she said. Zuko watched her step off the road and away towards some of the trees. He wasn't in the mood for a demonstration or some argument about sleeping outdoors, even if there really wasn't another option.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Just watch," she smiled. "You're about to get a lesson on Southern Water Tribe housing structures."

Zuko raised his only eyebrow, not at all liking the idea of whatever she might consider a house when she was some peasant from the bottom of the world. He watched in silence as she began to Water Bend, pulling the snow from the surrounding area and turning it to ice. It took shape slowly; a small, domed structure made entirely of ice. There was a narrow archway that pass for the entrance and a small hole in the top, which Zuko suspected was to allow air in and smoke out. He recalled seeing such structures at the South Pole when he'd first located the Avatar.

"Why is it so small?" he asked, frowning when she completed her Bending with a pleased smile.

"The smaller sizer helps keep the heat in," she explained. "If I made it big - the size of a palace or something, there would be more of the structure to heat. An igloo this small can be heated with body heat alone, if there isn't anything to burn to make a fire. Of course, we have plenty of kindling for a fire, but since there is only the two of us, and it's only for this evening, there's not much point making something bigger. We only need enough room to sleep and to have a small camp fire to keep us warm and cook something for dinner."

Zuko rolled his eyes at her practicality.

"You  _live_  in one of these where you come from?" he asked her.

"Yes," she nodded proudly. "I've never been able to make one with my Bending before. Or more accurately, I've never had to. Before I met Aang and left the South Pole, I was still very new to my bending. Since then, a tent has always sufficed. It's nice to be able to use my bending to make my own house, though. Come on, help me find some kindling to make a fire."

She strode to a nearby tree, picking sticks up from the ground that had been exposed as a result of her bending the snow that had been piled on top of them.

"All of this is damp," he grumbled. "It will take forever for it to light."

He watched with no small amount of annoyance when she used her Bending to pull all the water from the sodden wood until it was dry as bone. When they had enough wood to last the night, she crawled through the small archway and into the structure. Zuko sighed before following her. He didn't have high hopes for it being warm or comfortable. When he crawled into the igloo behind her, he hid his surprise. It was roomier inside that he'd expected. Nothing like his quarters on his ship, but by no means a closet.

She was using her Bending to create a fire pit from the snow on the ground inside the igloo, leaving the space dry and free of the wet stuff he was already sick of.

"I miss the sun," he complained, dumping his bag and his pile of wood on the floor and nudging her out of the way when he saw her attempting to make a fire. Obviously she'd forgotten for a moment that he was a Fire Bender and that fire stones weren't necessary.

She didn't complain at the touch. Zuko noted that she simply moved over to her bag and withdrew what he suspected was usually her tarp. She laid it out on the ground on one side of the fire pit as a ground cover before unrolling her sleeping bag on top of it. He hid a smirk when he watched her help herself to  _his_  sleeping bag, unrolling it next to hers and puttering about the small structure. Ordinarily he would've protested anyone touching his things, but the way she did it, without even a thought of how it might annoy him, amused him more than it should. That, and he kind of like the fact that she rolled them out next to each other, either intending to sleep right next to him or planning to share his with him as she'd done the night before. If he was being honest, Zuko didn't even know which he'd prefer.

Sharing with her was warm and her body heat was filling him with his Bending power once more, replacing his need for the sun to awaken his powers and maintain them. On the other hand, he shouldn't be wanting to crawl into his sleeping bag beside this girl he barely knew – especially when they'd tried to kill each other in the past. Zuko shook his head, beginning to suspect he had a problem that would likely take years of therapy to unravel whenever he got back home.  _If_ he ever got back home.

It was clear to him as he set up the fire and used his bending to light it, that Katara felt more at home in one of these things than she did anywhere else. When she began humming to herself whilst unpacking her bag, fishing out pots and pans and a small knife, Zuko looked on with a strange sense of amusement niggling at him. Since his ship and his crew had been confiscated, he'd grown used to having to cook his own food - something he was  _not_  very good at. But there was something about watching her that cured some of his bad mood. She looked entirely too content inside the small, icy dome.

He watched as she sliced up some vegetables before bending water from outside and channelling it into a stewing pot. She followed it with some meat, throwing it all into the pot and setting it over the fire to stew. Zuko glanced around, wondering what he should be doing. In the palace and aboard his ship, his food had simply been delivered to him. When he'd been on his own and with his Uncle, he'd had to help with the cooking process but Katara seemed much more efficient at cooking than him or Iroh. Shrugging to himself, he took the teapot from his belongings and crawled back out of the igloo. It wasn't ideal to have to melt the snow himself but he piled a few handfuls of the powdery stuff into the pot and crawled back into the dome before fire bending it to make tea.

She glanced at him a few times, offering him hunks of vegetables and pieces of bread to nibble on as she cooked their evening meal.

"You live like this, don't you, Water Bender?" Zuko asked a little while later when he resorted to sitting on his sleeping bag and sipping his tea.

"Yes," she smiled. "When the men of my tribe went off to war, there were only the women and children and the elderly too old to fight who were left behind. Most of the women were pregnant, so I got used to having to care for the children, pick up after Sokka, mind my Gran-Gran and do most of the chores. Honestly, being inside this thing is the closest I've come to feeling at home in a long time."

"You didn't feel at home when you were at the North Pole?" he frowned.

She looked up at him for a moment, stirring the stew and eyeing him strangely.

"No," she admitted. "I didn't really notice at the time but now that I think about it, I didn't feel at home there. You came to my village in the South Pole. You saw how we lived. Igloos and tents were the extent of what we could build. Without any capable water benders and with so few materials at our disposal, we had to build them by hand. At the North Pole it was like being in any other city made from stone or wood. It might've been made of ice, but the buildings were modelled on Earth Kingdom homes. They just didn't feel the way this does."

"You mean this one-roomed, tiny dome of ice where you sleep on a fur on the floor, rather than on a real bed or even a sleeping platform?" he scoffed.

"I could make a sleeping platform, but it would be made of ice and would melt under our body heat if we slept on it," she pointed out.

Zuko supposed she had a point. He watched as she returned her attention to their dinner, humming a song he'd never heard.

"What are you humming?" he asked when his curiosity got the best of him. Uncle had a tendency to hum too, while he drank his tea or played Pi Shoh. He could usually pick the song and recall the words when Uncle did it, but Katara hummed songs he didn't know.

"A Water Tribe song," she said, looking up at him again. "I didn't even realise I was humming. It's something Gran-Gran used to do when she was doing her chores. Am I bothering you?"

"No," Zuko shook her head. "I just don't know the song so I can't imagine the words."

"Would you like to hear them?" she asked, looking surprised by his friendlier tone given that he'd been snapping at her all day.

Zuko thought about it.

"Are you any good at singing?" he asked.

She snorted.

"Sometimes, I manage to forget that you're a prince," she chuckled. "Then you say something that defies what everyone else would consider manners and I remember again."

"Why? Because I didn't agree to listen to you singing without finding out if you're rubbish at it?" he frowned.

"Yes. Most people would politely decline if they didn't want to listen, or suffer through listening in silence, even if I was terrible. You rudely ask if I'm any good before deigning to accept or decline the offer to hear one of the songs of my people."

"Well, I don't want to listen if you're rotten at it. Why torture myself?"

Katara laughed and Zuko wondered if she found his words genuinely amusing or if she was laughing at him for being rude.

"I have an alright singing voice," she said. "At least, by Water Tribe standards. Do you want me to sing, or can I go back to humming,  _your highness_?"

Zuko made a face at the way she spoke the address of someone befitting his royal birth. For some reason the idea of having her call him that made him uncomfortable.

"I was stripped of my titled when I was banished, Water Bender," he sighed. "My Uncle may refer to me as Prince Zuko as a formality but I'm technically no longer the Prince of the Fire Nation. Until I reclaim my honour and restore myself in my Father's eyes – which I must do if I ever want to reclaim my throne - I'm just a banished Fire Bender. You don't have to call me 'Your Highness'."

She snorted at his explanation and Zuko frowned before realising when she shot him a bemused look at that she'd had no intention of referring to him by his title in a respectful manner. She'd done so to annoy him because he was being a snobby bastard. Zuko found his lips twitching in amusement rather than anger as she stirred their stew once more.

"Don't give me that look," he chided, smirking. "Now sing for me, peasant."

"Call me peasant again and see where it gets you," she retorted. "I might not be some fancy princess by Fire Nation standards, but I  _am_  daughter of the Tribe Chieftain."

"Head peasant is still a peasant," Zuko smirked at her.

She threw a spoon at him. Zuko dodged it easily even as he began to laugh. He waited in silence after that, watching her gather her courage to the idea of singing out loud with him listening. He didn't delude himself to think that it was as simple as opening her mouth and letting the words out. He'd been pressed by his uncle many times during their four years searching before they'd found the Avatar to sing out loud with other people listening. It hadn't gone well.

When she did finally open her mouth, her voice wasn't bad. It wasn't anything to write home about, but she could carry a tune well enough. She sang in a haunting high voice, weaving a tail about a young Water Bender's fight for the freedom to marry who she wanted to, rather than who her Tribe Chieftain chose for her. Zuko listened silently, closing his eyes to better hear her song and ingest the words. He could tell she was grateful that he'd done so when her voice grew a little stronger and surer without his gaze fixed on her.

He listened and he waited for the song to end, realising even as she sang that though her people were considered little more than peasants in the eyes of his people, their culture was rich and expressive. More so than his own. The Fire Nation might once have been a place where singing and stories and great tales of love and loss were born – at least, that's what Uncle said – but the Nation he recalled knew nothing of such things.

When she trailed off at the end of the song, Zuko opened his eyes to watch her once more. Her cheeks were flushed slightly, perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps with happiness at the recollection of her people. It bothered him a little that he didn't have any fond memories of his own people the way she seemed to. All of his memories of his time at the palace involved his father being horrid; his sister being cruel; his grandfather being utterly dismissive and his mother being taken away from him.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Katara bit her bottom lip amid the silence that followed her performance. She used her bending to channel some of the stew into cups for each of them when it was ready, noticing idly that Zuko seemed to have reacted poorly to her song. Not as though he hadn't liked it or that he thought she was a terrible singer.

His brow was furrowed into a deep frown and he watched her without seeming to see her. His eyes flashed occasionally with warring emotions and she suspected that his glimpse into life in the Southern Water Tribe had triggered memories, good and bad, of his own Nation's traditions and legends. From the look on his face, she was thinking most of them were unpleasant.

When she tried to hand him the cup of stew, he didn't take it and Katara frowned.

"Zuko?" she asked softly, setting down her own cup and touching his arm lightly.

He blinked as he came back to himself, his eyes darting to hers and one of his fists clenching, ready to bend at her should she prove a threat. She held his cup out to him in silence before handing him a hunk of bread to dip into it when he took it from her.

"Thanks," he muttered, looking down at the food.

Katara thought about trying to make conversation, but she doubted she was going to get much out of him. He was frowning even as he tore into his bread and began dipping it into his stew. Her stomach was cramping with hunger too, after the long day spent walking, carrying her heavy pack, and bending the snow from their path so that they wouldn't lose their way. Tolerating Zuko's foul temper and bitter moodiness whilst doing so had left her with quite the appetite. She found herself tucking into her stew heartily, going back for a second helping when the first was gone.

Zuko did the same, looking like the long day had taken something out of him, too. It had been a long time since he'd woken her trying to sneak out of the sleeping bags to steal supplies and Katara was ready to turn in as soon as she'd finished eating. Moving the stew-pot from over the heat of the fire and covering it, she figured that letting it continue to stew overnight would make it taste all the better, come morning.

Night had well and truly fallen when she took both of their cups and crawled to the entrance of the igloo she'd made, bending more snow to rinse their cups before returning.

"The wind is picking up out there again," she said quietly to Zuko when she returned. "Do you want me to close off the entrance completely?"

"What would you usually do?" Zuko asked.

"If I was at home and a blizzard was coming – before I discovered my bending – I'd have had to work with the others to ensure we wouldn't all be frozen inside our homes and trapped. The entrances would be kept clear of ice and snow, covered with animal skins to block out most of the wind. Now that I can bend, sealing the entrance almost all the way won't be an issue. The only thing we have to worry about is making sure that there's enough air for the two of us and to maintain the fire."

"Isn't that what the air hole at the top does?" he asked.

Katara nodded. "I'll have to keep an eye on that to make sure it doesn't close up during the night, but I want to leave the entrance open a little for the air flow. But not all the way. Who knows what the scent of our food might lure out of the woods? In this weather, I don't imagine many of the wild creatures are faring very well. We don't want to end up with an Armadillo-Bear trying to burst in on us during the night."

Zuko nodded.

"Block it most of the way. Do the walls need reinforcing to withstand another blizzard?" he asked.

"I don't think so. They're two feet thick all the way around. Unless a tree blows over and lands on it, it will hold," Katara said seriously, bending the snow to partially close the entrance. It went against her nature to do so, given what she learned in the South Pole as a girl, but she did it with the knowledge that she could liquefy the entire igloo if need be.

When she turned to look back at Zuko, he was in the process of stripping out of his coat and his other layers of clothing until he wore only his sleeveless tunic and his pants. Katara sighed tiredly before doing the same. She froze in the process of pulling her coats off until she wore nothing but her tunic, when Zuko suddenly started sniggering.

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded, turning questioning eyes on him and finding him watching her as he laughed.

"I forgot about that," he commented.

"What?" she asked.

He crooked a finger at her and Katara narrowed her eyes on him, not at all liking the wickedly amused expression on his face. Shuffling closer across the sleeping bags, she watched him lean toward her and prod the side of her neck.

"You've got a love-bite," he laughed. "Right here."

Katara's cheeks heated immediately as she clapped a hand over it in mortification before remembering that  _he_  was the one who'd given it to her.

"You gave me a love-bite?" she hissed furiously.

Zuko laughed even harder at her sudden fury, looking like she'd told the best joke he'd heard in years. He nodded as he laughed, watching with amusement as Katara clawed at her own flesh, wishing she had a mirror to inspect her reflection.

"When the soldier was questioning us this morning," he said. "I forgot I did it until just now."

She was sure her cheeks were crimson as she shoved at him in annoyance.

"Well, don't do it again!" she snapped. "Imagine if we ran into Sokka and Aang right now! They'd kill you."

Zuko had the audacity to roll his eyes.

"They couldn't if they tried, Water Bender. And I'll do whatever I have to if it makes  _this_ ," he wiggled a finger between the two of them. "Look more legitimate that you're my girlfriend. If it will save us, I'll do it as often as I need to."

Katara narrowed her eyes on him in annoyance.

"Sometimes, I really don't like you," she grumbled before pulling the rest of her things off until she was dressed in only her pants and her sarashi wraps on the top half. It was entirely too hot in the small igloo with their fire crackling away merrily under Zuko's supervision.

"I know," he smirked. "What? You're sleeping naked with me now, too?"

He eyed her lithe form critically.

"Don't be a jerk!" Katara snapped. "It's warm enough in here that I was sweating in my coat. I don't imagine being in a sleeping bag will be pleasant when it's this warm in here. And who said anything about sleeping  _with_ you?"

Zuko scowled at her.

"I did, Water Bender. If you want to pull off the idea of pretending to be my girlfriend, you'll have to share a bed with me."

"There's no one here to see if we do or we don't," Katara argued. "The last two nights were spent that way because it was too cold  _not_  to."

"And when I do this?" he asked.

Using his bending, he dimmed the fire to a soft glow.

"Why would you do that?" she asked, frowning.

"Because the walls of this thing are beginning to melt," he said. He pressed his hand to the icy wall before showing her the moisture upon his palm.

"If I open the door again, it will cool back down," she suggested. "We never had this problem at the South Pole."

"That's probably because your whole continent was made of ice and snow. You're on the ground here, rather than an ice flow. And if you open the door, who knows what kind of critters will get in?"

"Won't the fire go out if we burn it that low?" she asked.

"Not if I keep an eye on it," Zuko said.

"What about when you fall asleep?"

Zuko rolled his eyes.

"It's not cold enough that we'll die without waking up, Water Bender. I'll just use my bending to re-light it if it goes out."

Katara huffed out a breath.

"I still don't see why I would have to sleep in your sleeping bag with you again when it's warm enough that sharing body heat isn't necessary for survival," Katara said stubbornly.

"You draw your bending power form the moon, right? Zuko asked. Katara frowned at him.

"You know I do," she said.

"And I draw mine from the sun," he said. "Only, there hasn't  _been_  any sun for weeks now."

"It's there, behind the clouds," Katara frowned, unsure what that had to do with sharing a sleeping bag.

"It is, but it's weak. Meaning that my bending is decreasing in power. I have to find another means in this infernal blizzard for maintaining a relative level of heat inside myself to be able to bend."

"Every time I touch you, it's like touching a furnace," Katara rolled her eyes.

"For you. Not for me," he said. "I'm still cold, even with the walls sweating in here. Absorbing your body heat and generating more with you is probably the only thing that allows me to keep bending, right now. This blizzard has a spirit world feel to it and I'm thinking it's invoked with the need to rid the world of Fire Benders until the war is over."

"You think you'd lose your power without sharing body heat with me?" Katara asked, surprised at the idea.

"I wouldn't lose it forever, just until the blizzard ends. Like a solar eclipse, too long without the sun and Fire Benders are diminished in their power. If there was ever a way to slow the wheels of war, this will be it. Without bending, most Fire Nation soldiers don't know much hand-to-hand fighting."

"What's to stop them from just snuggling with people to maintain their power?" Katara asked.

"Most people don't know how to draw their power like that, and most wouldn't be willing to do it because it limits the ability Bend without that person as the replacement source," Zuko shrugged.

"Is this a chi thing?" Katara frowned at him.

"Noticed that, did you?" he asked, rather than answering.

"I thought it was just me. Whenever I get close or touch you, like this, I can feel…." She trailed off as she reached over and touched his arm, her chi sliding against his immediately.

"Feels like my chi envelopes yours, doesn't it? Zuko asked quietly, looking at her strangely.

"Yes," she said. "Is that because you're somehow drawing power from me?"

Zuko shook his head.

"No. I don't know what  _that_  is. I'd have to ask my Uncle. I've never heard of it happening with anyone else, and I've never had it happen with any other Bender."

Katara blinked at him.

"You feel it too, right?" she asked, subconsciously moving closer to him as their chi brushed and touched so intimately.

Zuko nodded. "But it's not because I'm drawing power from you by stealing your body heat. There's an art to doing that, which most fire benders don't know about. Uncle told me about it a long time ago and I tried it when I touched you the other night. Fire Bending requires a heat source. Like the other elements, the material that I bend has to come from somewhere. Generally, that fire is created through rage and anger manifesting as fire, but the fire still comes from inside me. I give it life, I fuel it. You simply Bend water. I create fire to bend it. But if a Fire Bender is too cold and kept away from the sun for too long, the ability to make it diminishes – like running out of energy."

"Are you saying Fire Benders are solar powered?" Katara asked, raising one eyebrow. She barely noticed the way she'd began tracing patterns over his forearms with her fingertips as she spoke to him.

"Not in so blunt a fashion, but yes," he frowned. "We draw our power from the sun because it is the life-giving energy that fuels our bodies, as it fuels the rest of the world."

"So how are you using my heat to fuel your fire?" she wanted to know.

"I learned how to maintain the fire energy within me, even when I'm not manifesting and bending it. Uncle taught me. It's always there, but if I'm cold and tired, it dims. Stealing your warmth, like this, means I warm up and the energy returns." He tugged her closer as he spoke, moving her until she was pressed against the length of his tall, wiry frame. His hands were hot as he slid them over the exposed skin of her midriff and Katara felt her heart rate rising even as her cheeks flushed pink.

"This is why you keep dragging me into your sleeping bag?" she asked.

He nodded, keeping a firm grip on her as he laid back on their sleeping bags and pulled her along with him until she was stretched out on top of him.

"You realise that if anyone knew about this, they'd have a heart attack, right?" Katara asked him.

"I'm not exactly going to go blabbing to your brother or the Avatar, Water Bender," Zuko said quietly.

"No, but  _we'll_  both know."

"Are you going to keep talking and being so tense, or are you going to let me sleep?" he demanded, lifting his head to glare at her. Katara propped her chin against his sternum to glare back at him.

"I can't sleep on top of you, Zuko. It's weird. And it will make both of us stiff, come morning."

"My track record so far suggests I'll be stiff either way," he replied.

Katara swatted him.

"Must you be vulgar?" she demanded.

"I take perverse pleasure in seeing you blush," he retorted.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Katara grumbled, attempting to roll off him and failing when he held her firm on top of him.

"Stop squirming," he complained. "Just hold still and let me siphon your heat enough that if I wanted to, I could roast you alive."

"I'd rather you didn't," she said.

"Didn't roast you, or didn't steal your heat?"

"Would you let me go? It's too hot for cuddling."

"Only a Water Bender would complain it's too hot in the middle of a blizzard," Zuko said.

Katara made a noise of frustration, swatting him again when he began to laugh, still refusing to release her.

"You're insufferable," she accused, wriggling in his grip some more and managing to slide to one side of his body though both her arm and her leg where still thrown across him and she still laid half on top of him.

"Comfortable now?" he asked.

"No," Katara said. "Would you stop being so clingy?"

"I was out in the bloody blizzard all day, Water Bender. I'm  _freezing_ , even in here. Be grateful I'm not suggesting you strip naked to better share  _all_  of your body heat with me, rather than just some of it."

"Again with the vulgarity?" she demanded.

Zuko grinned in response, a wicked expression that made her insides twist over.

"You kind of like it," he accused. "Don't bother denying it. You blush every time I mention it and I didn't hear any protest to kissing me this morning."

"I didn't have much choice, did I?" she argued.

"Of course you did. You could have killed that soldier and run for it."

"You sprang at me out of nowhere and kissed me before I even realised it was you," Katara protested and Zuko began to laugh at her indignation. Katara realised, belatedly, that he was enjoying antagonising her.

After the wretched mood he'd been in all day, she couldn't say she minded all that much.

"Didn't stop you kissing me back though, did it?" he teased.

Katara nipped him, turning her head and nipping his chest in punishment.

"Ouch!" he protested, though it sounded feigned.

"Serves you right," she huffed, hiding a smile of her own against his shoulder. It amused her more than it should to learn that the serious, angry prince of the Fire Nation actually had a playful side.

"I'm not above flipping you and making it so that you'll have another reason for needing to drink that tea from now on, Water Bender," he threatened and Katara laughed. She couldn't help it. A giggle escaped her before she could contain it and she laughed out loud at the very idea.

He started laughing too when she laughed so much she kicked her legs with glee. Rolling to her back as she laughed all the harder, she felt Zuko prop himself up on one shoulder, watching her as she positively rolled on the floor at his threat.

"It wasn't  _that_  funny a suggestion, Katara," he protested, still chuckling.

She'd almost had herself under control but at his words she dissolved into giggles once more.

"How am I meant to get any sleep with you giggling and writhing around like squirrel-snake?" he demanded, and Katara laughed even more.

Shaking her head at him, still laughing, she wriggled closer until she was pressed to his side once more, a quiver rushing through her when he slid his hand slowly across her stomach, his warmth making her ache strangely. When she finally got her laughter under control, he was leaning over her slightly, watching her as though she was a complex puzzle he was trying to solve. Katara smiled at him softly and his eyes darted to her lips.

She licked them self-consciously, tension fizzing between them suddenly. He was so close, and kissing him had felt so good that morning. Without conscious thought to do so, she found herself reaching for him, tangling her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck. He didn't flinch back or pull away from her touch and Katara watched his golden eyes jump between her lips and her own blue eyes, his expression a mixture of hunger, intrigue and guarded worry, as though he weren't sure they should be kissing again, but wanted to do so nonetheless.

Carefully, he lowered his lips to hers, capturing them softly, tasting her mouth slowly. The brush of his lips against hers made her heart race inside her chest and the feel of his chi curling around her own nearly made her delirious. Pressing up against him more fully, fisting his hair to hold him against her, Katara kissed him hungrily, needily. After so long without human contact of any kind before she'd approached him, her body seemed bent on making up for lost time.

His hand on her stomach curled further around, pressing to the small of her back and moulding her to him firmly. Katara felt the strangest urge to wrap her legs around him and she realised then that she was in trouble. It was one thing to kiss him for the sake of their safety in front of Fire Nation soldiers. It was entirely another to do so in private, with no one to perform for and no reason for it other than simple want.

Without conscious thought, she found herself peeling him out of his shirt, snagging the hem and dragging it up, over his chest. She broke the kiss as she pulled the garment off over his head and he shifted to discard it completely before pulling her to him and kissing her once more. Katara's breath came in soft gasps as he claimed her lips once more, his hands hot as they pulled her closer, his bare chest almost too warm to touch.

Just as she felt his hands sliding up over her ribs heading for the bindings on her chest, there was a sudden thump against the wall of the igloo, followed by the sound of rapidly pounding fists.

"HELP! HELP US!"


	10. Chapter 10

Zuko moved off her so fast that Katara nearly got whiplash. Suddenly, he was crouched beside her on their sleeping bags, a dagger in each hand, and his eyes were narrowed on the source of the sound.

"HELP!"

The rapid pounding was almost drowned out by the howl of a wolf, sounding entirely too close for comfort. Melting the wall, Katara looked on in shock when two teenagers almost of an age with her and Zuko toppled right through it. Beyond them a pack of wolves was bearing down on them.

The girl screamed as she fell through the wall to land in a heap on the far side of their fire, while the boy cursed and managed to roll, coming up into a crouch almost identical to Zuko's. His eyes fixed on the threat they made even as Katara used her bending to freeze the wall solid once more. Just in time, it seemed, because the solid thump of a wolf colliding with the wall followed a moment later.

"Who are you?" Zuko snarled at the kids across the fire.

"You saved us!" the girl panted, righting herself slowly even as she scrambled away from the wall. "And you have fire. Gods, I could kiss both of you! There are wolves out there."

Katara watched the girl warily. She had messy brown hair and the vibrant green eyes of an Earth Bender. She also had scrapes on her hands and knees, a rip in her shirt and she was bleeding.

"Did you get bitten?" Katara asked before the girl could catch her breath. She made to move forward to help her, but Zuko's hand on her stomach – hot against her bare skin – stopped her suddenly.

"I did, yeah. Gods, and it looks like we interrupted some fun for you two. Sorry about that, but honestly, I feel insincere saying it when the alternative was being eaten by wolves. Kuzon, stop glaring at the pair of them! They just saved our lives! Put down your knife this minute," the girl swatted her friend. "Sorry about him. He's a bit edgy. I'm Meng, this is Kuzon. Thank you, again, for saving us. Although I'd love to know how you made the wall melt and freeze again. Actually, I'd love to know how you made a hut out of ice, to be honest, but I'm rambling. Sorry about that too, I ramble when I'm terrified and I did almost just get eaten by a pack of wolves."

In spite of the dire situation and the wolves now scratching and digging at their igloo, Katara couldn't help but laugh at the way the girl prattled.

"I'm Katara," she introduced herself. "I should… put a shirt on. Dang it, where is it? I need to heal you before you attract who knows what else with the scent of that blood all over you."

"You're a Water Bender," Kuzon, the boy, accused her.

Katara froze, turning slowly to look at him. She narrowed her eyes slightly at the way he watched the pair of them.

"Well, obviously," Katara rolled her eyes. "Aren't you glad I am? If I wasn't you'd be being ripped to shreds right now. Kuzon, was it? Fire Nation name, isn't it?"

He narrowed his eyes on her in return. Eyes, she noticed, which were the same brilliant shade of Fire Bender gold as Zuko's.

"Clever, aren't you?" he said tightly.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Kuzon! Stop being such a jerk. She saved your life. Ignore him, Katara. He's always this touchy," Meng said, swatting the boy again. "Did you say you have healing abilities? Because that would be fantastic. I'm so sorry we had to burst in on you like this, but honestly, I'd rather this than facing those wolves."

"How did you even run into them?" Katara asked the other girl. She couldn't find her own shirt in the tangle of sleeping bags and so she settled for Zuko's, pulling it on over her head and making the prince frown at her. She nudged him to get him to relax, noting the way he was sizing up the other boy like he wouldn't mind hacking him to bits. "Put the knives down. They're not here to kill us."

"You don't know that," he argued. "Kuzon's tried before."

Katara froze again and so did Meng. Kuzon didn't look surprised by the accusation.

"You're running with a Water Bender, Prince Zuko?" Kuzon asked, raising one eyebrow and looking smug. "My, my, what would the Fire Lord have to say about  _that_?"

"You two  _know_  each other?" Katara asked, immediately on the defensive at his words and the idea that he clearly recognised Zuko.

"His mother used to work in the palace in the Fire Nation," Zuko said tightly. "She was banished when my mother disappeared."

Katara's eyes darted between the two of them carefully.

"What do you mean he tried to kill you once before?" she asked, moving closer to Zuko and preparing to spear an ice-shard through Kuzon's heart if the need arose.

"It was a bloody practice match!" Kuzon suddenly protested, lowering his dagger and shooting Zuko an exasperated look. "I didn't try to kill you. I just tripped while chasing you with a sword we weren't supposed to be playing with."

"You nearly took my arm off," Zuko argued.

"Please," Kuzon rolled his eyes. "I barely even nicked you with the blade. You were always such a drama-prince."

He started to laugh and Katara watched Zuko, noting the way his lips twitched like he might laugh too. Meng was watching closely too, and she sighed when both Fire Nation boys relaxed.

"Is the tense pissing match over?" she asked. "Because I'm still bleeding here."

Katara laughed, already liking the other girl. Hurrying around the fire, she took a look at the scrapes and the bite mark before using her Water Bending to heal them.

"This is seriously so cool," Meng said. "You're a Water Bender. I've never met a Water Bender before."

"You're an Earth Bender, aren't you?" Katara asked the girl.

Meng looked surprised.

"How did you know?" she asked.

Katara shrugged.

"Well, anyway. I am. But I'm not very good at it, yet. It's hard to be good at bending without being hauled off by the Fire Nation soldiers, so there's hardly opportunity for me to practice. The most I can do is make a sleeping platform a foot off the ground. See, watch?"

She took a Bending stance and raised the sleeping station Katara had set up, with Zuko still on it. He narrowed his eyes on the girl dangerously. Katara shook her head at him, noting that Kuzon looked protective of the girl the minute Zuko looked at her.

"Are you still bleeding, Meng?" Kuzon asked, moving toward the messy haired girl.

"No, Katara healed me," Meng smiled, turning to the boy and going up on her toes to kiss him. "We survived. I thought we were done for out there."

Kuzon nodded against her lips, kissing her back hotly and Katara glanced at Zuko. He looked surprised to see his former sparring partner kissing an Earth Bender.

"How long has it been since the two of you saw each other?" she asked him, moving back to sit next to him on the now raised sleeping platform.

"Since I was five, when my mother disappeared," Zuko said quietly. "Katara, don't trust them too easily. We both have a price on our heads."

Katara nodded.

"I'm not about to turn you in, Zuko," Kuzon said, looking away from his girlfriend to shoot Zuko a hurt expression. "I don't need the gold and I sure don't want the attention of the Fire Nation fixed on me."

"Yeah, sure," Zuko rolled his eyes. "As though anyone is going to turn down that much money."

"Thirteen years apart and exile haven't changed your condescension, I see," Kuzon said bluntly and Katara almost bit her tongue off in surprise at his boldness.

"Haven't taught you any more manners than you had at five, either," Zuko replied.

"You two were kids together?" Meng asked, smiling. "That's wonderful. Imagine the odds to have run into each other again now! That's amazing. Kismet, even. Did you call him 'Prince'?"

"He's the son of Fire Lord Ozai," Kuzon nodded his head. "Banished after losing an Agni Kai, wasn't it?"

Zuko gritted his teeth.

"Weren't you banished too?" Katara asked, frowning. "What are you doing in the Earth Kingdom?"

"Sure was. Best thing that ever happened to me, getting away from that place," Kuzon nodded.

Katara watched Meng bend a second sleeping platform for the two of them on the other side of the fire. The girl went about unrolling sleeping bags on the platform, making herself right at home. Something Zuko frowned over. Katara thought it was rather amusing. They could hardly send the young couple back into the snow to face the wolves, and the blizzard was kicking up again, the wind beginning to howl as it whistled past the smoke-hole.

"You're pleased you were banished?" Zuko asked.

Kuzon nodded, handing his girlfriend a water skin.

"Best thing to happen to me. I was finally free. No more dressing fancy. No more following all those buggering rules in the Palace. No worrying about putting a toe out of line or getting into trouble. It was great. I could just be a regular kid."

"What did you mother do in the palace?" Katara asked.

"She was a ladies maid to Zuko's mother, Ursa," Kuzon told her. "When no one was looking, me and Zuko used to play together, whenever we could give Azula the slip."

"What are the two of you doing way out here?" she asked curiously.

"Same as you, I expect," Kuzon said. "Trying to get to Ba Sing Se. We followed the cleared path on the road to get to here, which I'm guessing was cleared by you. We thought we'd make it to the next town before nightfall, but we didn't. Those wolves snuck up on us while Meng was trying to Bend us a shelter for the night and we had to run for it. I've never been so glad to see shelter in all my life."

Katara nodded.

She looked over when Zuko nudged her and saw that he was handing her the crumple up ball of her shirt, obviously wanting his own back. She pulled it off over her head without thinking, giving it back to him and taking her own from him. The look he shot her before she pulled her own back on made her recall with startling clarity just what they'd been doing before they'd been interrupted and just why he'd had his shirt off to begin with.

In spite of both being Fire Nation, and being childhood friends, she also noticed that Zuko looked wary of Kuzon. He sat close to her side, tense and ready to Fire Bend or to lunge at the other boy at a moment's notice. He also seemed all the more comfortable with her and interested in her in that moment than she'd expected. She wondered if he was just trying to make them look more like a couple, suddenly needing to perform again, or if he was genuinely worried and wanted to make sure they'd both be safe.

She understood the feeling. Even though they were both strangers and seemed nice, she felt the urge to press closer to his side. She was perfectly capable of defending herself against either of them, she knew, but there was comfort to be had in knowing Zuko would defend her too, if it came to it.

"Are you a Bender, Kuzon?" Katara asked in the silence that followed his explanation.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Fire Bender. I'm a bit rusty, though. I was flinging fireballs at those wolves to drive them back, but they're hungry after such heavy snow and the blizzards. They were determined to eat the pair of us."

"Why are you rusty?" Zuko asked.

"No one to spar with," he shrugged. "No one who wouldn't rat me out for a Fire Bender, anyway. You've probably noticed that the army get cocky about it and the rest of the world hates us?"

Zuko nodded his head.

"So I keep it to myself, use it to heat tea or start a hearth fire and that's about it. I haven't sparred with anyone since I left the palace."

"Why didn't you find other Benders to spar with?" Katara frowned.

Zuko was the one who answered.

"Do you know how few people want to even talk to you when they find out you're a Fire Bender, Katara?" he asked. "I helped save a kid from being conscripted to fight in the war for the Earth Kingdom a while back and had to Fire Bend to do it. Before they knew what I could do, they invited me to their farm, let me eat with them, gave me work, money and supplies even though they had so little. The minute they found out, that ungrateful little shit told me he hated me and walked away without another word."

Katara frowned.

"Admittedly,  _you_  don't have the best reputation," she said. "Did you tell them your name?"

Zuko narrowed his eyes on her.

"The point is, being a Fire Bender isn't so great unless you work with the Fire Nation and want to piss off the rest of the world," Kuzon told her when Zuko looked annoyed. "Kept it to myself. Meng was the first one I told in almost ten years."

Katara nodded and silence fell. It was slightly awkward, as though they were all waiting for Zuko's temper tantrum.

"There's some stew in the pot there, if you two are hungry," Katara offered when Zuko didn't speak. Instead he stood up and made for the door, where one of the wolves was digging at the small opening. A yelp and the scent of singed fur followed his throwing a fireball and Katara winced.

"Oh, we don't want to put you out and eat your food," Meng protested.

"It's no trouble. Eat while it's hot. You've had a pretty bad day," Katara told them. "Besides, I think we might be stuck here together for a while. The blizzard is kicking up again."

"Oh no," Meng whispered, her eyes going wide. "What if we run out of food? Or get snowed in?"

"We won't run out of food," Zuko growled, throwing another fireball through the small opening, tormenting the hungry wolves outside. "That is, if you don't mind eating wolf."

"You're going to… kill one of those wolves?" Meng asked, her eyes wide in horror.

Katara almost rolled her eyes. She'd grown accustomed to Aang and his respect for all life, but there were times when being delicate about killing for food was the only way to live. Especially in a blizzard when all the fruits and vegetables died.

"What? You want to save the mangy beast that bit you?" Zuko sneered over his shoulder and Katara sighed. She was  _not_  in the mood to put up with him being a strop again.

"I should make the igloo bigger," she muttered to herself. "If we're going to be stuck here, maybe for days, we're going to need more room and it's already too hot in here."

"You're muttering," Zuko said, appearing beside her when she paced toward the back of the igloo and began bending, drawing more snow from the surrounding area to strengthen the walls against the wolves and to expand the igloo.

"You're in the way," she murmured to him in return.

"Why are you making it bigger? We're not staying here," he informed her.

"We don't' have a choice," Katara argued.

"We're leaving in the morning."

Katara narrowed her eyes on the prince. "Look at this," she said, unfreezing a section of the roof and pulling the water back, revealing a huge storm cloud overhead, heavy with snow.

Zuko eyed it in annoyance.

"Bloody hell, it's cold when you do that," Kuzon complained, huddling closer to the fire and making it grow.

"We're going to run out of firewood," Zuko warned her. "And food."

"We'll eat a wolf," she replied.

"You would, wouldn't you?" he smirked cruelly. "Savage peasants, you Water Tribe folk."

Katara swatted him. He caught her hand.

"Don't hit me, Water Bender," he murmured, pulling her closer by her wrist.

Katara darted a glance toward Kuzon and Meng. They were busy eating, but Kuzon was slyly watching them.

"Don't be a jerk, then," Katara replied. "And let go. I need to seal the igloo again before one of those wolves gets in."

"I don't want to stay here. Not with them," he told her, pulling her even closer and putting his hand on the small of her back even as she using her Bending.

"We don't have a choice," she muttered. "What's your problem? He used to be your friend and she's nice."

"I was barely tolerating  _you_ ," Zuko replied, too quiet for the others to hear. "Maybe you didn't notice, but I don't like people. I like my Uncle and that's it. Even he gets on my nerves. Putting up with you is bad enough, without two strays."

Katara rolled her eyes.

"You seemed to be tolerating my company just fine before they showed up," she reminded him. "In fact, I'd say you were enjoying my company. Immensely."

"How am I to enjoy it now, with these two here?" he asked.

Katara laughed at him. She didn't mean to, but she couldn't help it. He was so grumpy and so moody all the time. He also didn't seem to realise he'd just admitted annoyance over the notion of not being able to kiss her because they had company. As though he hadn't realised they'd been about to make a mistake and cross a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

Being in his company this way was dangerous, she realised. His chi was enveloping hers even as he stood there, invading her personal space and complaining about everything. He'd obviously decided that the best way to siphon her body heat was also by touching and kissing her. If Katara was honest with herself, she didn't know how far things might've gone if they hadn't been interrupted.

And  _that_  was a problem. He was supposed to be the enemy. They might've called a truce as a result of mutual need for the other to find their companions and to travel safely, but that shouldn't be extending to anything sexual. Gods, she'd only been with him for three days. Admittedly, her track record with boys was short and heated in just the same way, but that had turned out to be a mistake, too. She'd slept with Jet before realising he was a monster and she'd been interested in Haru too, before they'd parted ways.

Haru was a good guy, at least. But Zuko wasn't. In fact, he was one of the  _worst_  people she knew. He was a killer. A traitor to his own nation. A menace hunting Aang. A nuisance with the way he was so ridiculously moody  _all_  the time.

And yet Katara couldn't deny that she was attracted to him. His hands on her body felt good. His lips on hers felt amazing. Even the feel of his desire prodding at her when she woke or when they kissed felt good. Worst of all, his chi felt addictive. Zuko would likely be the biggest mistake she would ever make, but dang if he didn't show promise that he would be the most intoxicating, passionate, wild, delicious and pleasurable mistake she could make.

"It's not funny," he told her, looking all the more annoyed.

"He's a Fire Bender too, Zuko. He could probably use a friend. They're both Benders but they have almost no access to their abilities, look at them," Katara tipped her head, watching Meng trying to create a small wall around each of the sleeping platforms to give them all some privacy and to keep them from rolling off the platform and into the fire. She wasn't having much luck.

Kuzon was trying to make the fire bigger to warm the igloo back up after Katara had taken the roof off it, looking like they were both chilled to the bone.

"They're pathetic. What is your point?" Zuko deadpanned.

Katara swatted him again without thinking.

"If you hit me again, I'm going to pin you to something and find another way to occupy your hands, Water Bender," Zuko warned her.

"Stop it!" she hissed at him, pulling her hands out of his grip when he tried to catch them. "My point is that they need  _help_. Not everyone is as lucky as you or me. They haven't been fortunate enough to be trained by a Master. They're barely managing the basics and they need us. There's no way they'll make it to Ba Sing Se on their own. They nearly got eaten today and they aren't strong enough to defend themselves very well. You could teach Kuzon how to be a decent Fire Bender, because – and if you ever repeat this I'm  _going_ to hit you again – you're probably as close to being a Master as most people ever get. You could train him and show him how to Bend well enough to defend himself.

"I don't know much about Earth Bending, but I could show Meng some of the Water Bending moves I know to see if she can apply the same principles to Earth Bending. It's not the same, of course, but I found that even being around Benders of different elements before training with Master Paku was helpful. She might learn a few things. Enough to make their own hut to hide from wolves if the need arises, at least. Look at them, Zuko. They're cold and they're hungry. They're tired, and they're going to be stuck with us until this blizzard breaks. So stop being a snobby jerk just because you hate everyone on the planet, suck it up and realise that for the next few days, you and your former friend will be getting reacquainted."

Zuko curled his lip.

"Besides," Katara whispered. "They're actually a couple. Outside of kissing, I've got no idea how to pretend to be someone's girlfriend, and you're doing a rubbish job of being a boyfriend."

"I defended you" he replied. "I didn't even say anything when you took my shirt. I'm being a  _fantastic_  boyfriend."

"You're being a jerk," Katara corrected him.

"If anyone else spoke to me the way you do, I'd burn them to a crisp or have them killed," he said, arching his eyebrow at her in challenge.

"D you know how pompous you sound when you say things like that?" Katara countered. He narrowed his eyes on her, looking like he was thinking about hurting her to remind her that they  _weren't_  a couple and weren't friends and that he  _was_  a Prince.

"You only want to travel with them because you can't you stand the idea of being alone with me," Zuko said bitterly, looking away.

Katara realised right in that moment how many issues Zuko must actually have. She sighed and he stiffened in surprise when she ducked her head slightly, pressing her torso to his chest and looping her arms around his waist in a loose hug.

He stood stiff for a moment before putting his arms around her, his chi sliding along hers sensually and making her want to melt into him. She was still too warm inside the igloo, especially when pressed against him, but she could feel him shiver ever so slightly with the cold.

"Let's just see how the next few days go being stuck in here together," she muttered against his neck, surprised to feel him prop his chin on the top of her head. "If things go well, maybe we can travel with them. If they don't, we'll travel together to the next town and then go our separate ways."

"Are you talking about you and me? Or us and them?" he clarified.

"Us and them, you idiot!" Katara snorted. "Though if you annoy me as much as you have been today, I reserve the right to duel you until we both keel over from exhaustion. And then to demand a foot rub."

"You're delusional," he told her.

Katara knew it was probably true.

"Selfish jerk," she accused, though there was a fondness in her voice as she said so.

"Deal with it," he replied and Katara laughed all over again.


End file.
